Official Report: Tuesday 26 May 2026

Ms Finnegan: I pay tribute to an extraordinary woman from south Armagh who has just made history. Last week, Sarah Armstrong from Crossmaglen stood on the highest point on earth when she successfully summited Mount Everest. For most people, Everest is a dream. For Sarah, it became a goal. Through determination, resilience and hard work, she turned that dream into a reality.

As she grew up in south Armagh, sport has always been at the heart of Sarah's life from representing Ireland at netball and captaining Ireland at the World Youth Cup to building a successful career in dentistry and establishing her practice in Jonesborough. Sarah has always pushed herself to achieve more, but what makes her achievement special is that she has never focused solely on her own success. For years, she has inspired and empowered others through fitness, sport and community leadership. She has encouraged women across south Armagh to step outside their comfort zone, build their confidence and believe in themselves. She has supported women through some of life's toughest challenges and has shown that sport can be a powerful force for resilience, well-being and friendship. Everest may be the highest mountain in the world, but Sarah's greatest achievement has always been lifting others up along the way.

As Sarah makes her way across the skies back to Irish soil, she returns not only as an Everest summiteer but as an inspiration to an entire generation of young people who now know that no dream is too big and no mountain is too high. Sarah, we are proud of you, your community is proud of you, and your friends and family love and support you. We are all immensely proud of everything that you have achieved. Crossmaglen cannot wait to welcome you home.

Mrs Erskine: Over the weekend, Sinn Féin loudly rang the irony klaxon on net zero targets.

Let us take a short walk down memory lane. In 2022, when climate change legislation was making its way through the Assembly, the DUP warned of the consequences of imposing unrealistic and unworkable targets in Northern Ireland. It was not only the DUP that sounded that alarm: experts did too. The UK's independent Climate Change Committee repeatedly warned that a full net zero target for Northern Ireland was not realistically achievable. Its advice was clear: Northern Ireland could credibly achieve around 82% reduction in emissions by 2050 — not absolute net zero. However, Sinn Féin, Alliance and the SDLP decided that they knew better, and now, we are living with the consequences.

The Climate Change Committee also warned that infrastructure, transport and energy policies would have to align with climate legislation, which would mean that major roads and infrastructure projects would face increasing legal and planning challenges unless Ministers could demonstrate compatibility with carbon budgets. And so we come to the A5. While I welcome the First Minister's belated admission that climate legislation may need to be revised, it is a remarkable U-turn from a party that championed that legislation only a few weeks ago in the Chamber. The DUP warned that this would happen. Only last month, the DUP tabled a motion calling for a proper cost-benefit analysis of Northern Ireland's net zero targets while recognising the impact that they could have on strategic infrastructure projects such as the A5. What happened? The Ulster Unionists voted against it; Alliance voted against it; the SDLP voted against it; and Sinn Féin voted against it.

Paying lip service in the media is one thing, but taking action is another. While I welcome the fact that Sinn Féin apparently has come to its senses, the reality is this: legislation must be practical, proportionate and workable. It cannot become so rigid that it paralyses infrastructure investment, undermines regional connectivity and prevents the delivery of projects that save lives. Northern Ireland contributes only a tiny fraction of global emissions, yet we have created a legislative framework that risks blocking Northern Ireland moving forward. The DUP is prepared to work on that. It is time that others showed the same impetus on the issue.

Mr Mathison: Last week, we saw the Department of Education launch a key report on the level of demand for integrated education and a new integrated education support programme. Those two announcements coming within 24 hours of each other represent a classic case of mixed messaging.

The report on demand for integrated education, which was required in legislation, was, regrettably, full of political spin and seemed at pains to downplay demand for integrated education at every opportunity. The message in the report, however, was clear: regardless of which measure you prefer to use, there remains significant unmet demand for integrated education in NI. The life and times survey sets out that 55% of those surveyed would prefer to send their child to an integrated school or, if you prefer, 31% of parents who have recently been through the admissions process would have preferred to send their child to an integrated school. In a context where only 8·4% of the available school places are integrated, there is clearly a huge unmet demand for integrated education. When the law requires the Minister not just to measure that demand but to aim to meet it, it is clearly time for action, not spin.

A report that sets out demand with the numbers that I have just referenced and then attempts to explain it away as patchy, variable or reflective of a couple of oversubscribed schools and so on is not taking the duty to aim to meet demand seriously. The Minister needs to take the politics out of this. We have seen it before in recent decisions: you cannot, on one hand, acknowledge demand in an area, such as the area that a large part of my Strangford constituency falls into — Ards and North Down — and then, when two schools in that area bring forward proposals to transform, refuse them. That seems to me to be an exercise in gaslighting the public.

It is not all doom and gloom. The launch of the integrated education support fund, which quickly followed the report that I have referenced, is welcome. Alliance has argued for years that schools, often in rural areas, that have different management types should proactively seek to come together to secure sustainable provision in their communities and, where possible, offer that integrated model at the same time. It is welcome that the Department is now proactively offering support for schools to undertake that work and deliver those solutions, and I encourage schools across Northern Ireland to engage with the process. I hope to see creative solutions to bring schools forward in the not-too-distant future.
It is vital that the Department does not continue with mixed messages. Either the Department is serious about dealing with this and the Minister will step up and deliver, or it is not. It is time for the political spin to be taken out of the issue and for the statutory duties to be exercised fully and properly.

Ms D Armstrong: I will highlight the urgent plight of front-line domestic abuse services in my constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, particularly Fermanagh and Omagh Women's Aid, which is facing critical pressures to ensure that its services remain viable and available.

Ending violence against women and girls is a key priority that we all share. Organisations like Women's Aid are on the front line dealing with education and prevention and assisting those affected. Those organisations are seeing an unprecedented increase in the need for their services, with Women's Aid having to refocus the organisation towards crisis response and safeguarding to the detriment of increased awareness and preventative activity. Raising awareness of the issues has been successful, but increased disclosure has, in turn, led to an increased demand for support. Unfortunately, there just has not been the corresponding investment to respond to the epidemic adequately. Shockingly, more women and girls are waiting for support than are actively receiving a service. The situation is simply unsustainable. If we are encouraging those affected by domestic abuse to come forward, it is unacceptable that we do not have the capacity to assist them when they make that brave step.

My colleague Mike Nesbitt MLA, as Health Minister, has visited Women's Aid in County Fermanagh and has seen at first hand the issues facing those rural communities. However, the Justice Minister must also now engage to develop a greater understanding of the issues facing Fermanagh and Omagh Women's Aid and its hugely straining operational demands. So many rural services feel forgotten, and, despite the Executive's commitment to ending violence against women and girls, those services are struggling to see how they have been supported locally. I urge the Executive to intervene. Meaningful investment, engagement and support are now paramount to ensure that protection and awareness measures are implemented robustly and that women and girls across Northern Ireland feel that they have somewhere to turn in their darkest hour.

Mr McGrath: Recently, I had an eye-opening meeting with nursery and primary-school principals, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) and trade unions from across east Down. Their message was certainly not a form of political spin or exaggeration. It was an absolute warning: a warning that our schools are being pushed to the brink and that children with additional needs are being badly failed by a system that is no longer coping with the pressure that is being placed on it. Those on the front line spoke honestly about classrooms being under enormous strain, support services being stretched beyond capacity and children waiting months, sometimes years, for the help and intervention that they so desperately need.

The children are not looking for special treatment. They are simply looking for a fair chance: a fair chance to learn, communicate, feel included in their classroom and reach their potential like every other child. Our schools want to give them that chance. Nobody enters teaching to watch children fall behind. Teachers care deeply about the young people sitting in front of them every day, and they want to help those children succeed. However, they cannot do that without help. Despite all that pressure, they turn up every morning and hold the system together. That dedication deserves more than warm words from our Executive; it demands support, because, right now, in the middle of all of this, exhausted parents are fighting battle after battle simply to get their child assessed and supported properly. Parents feel that they are ignored and passed from pillar to post. They are worried sick about what the future holds for their son or daughter.

What concerns me most is this: major changes are still being pushed forward without any honest explanation of how schools will be resourced to deliver them. The Children's Commissioner has already warned that the proposals for a graduated response framework are not ready for implementation. That was echoed by the staff whom I met at the meeting. Those warnings cannot be brushed aside. If teachers, principals and specialists are all telling us that the system is not coping, the Education Minister has a duty to listen before things get worse.

The reality is simple: schools cannot absorb endless pressure without consequences. Eventually, something has to give. When that happens, it is not Ministers who will suffer the consequences but children. Today I urge the Education Minister to start to listen to those who are on the front line, as I did at that meeting. He will hear clearly that staff are at the absolute brink. We must do something to support and help them in their work helping our children.

Ms Flynn: A chairde

, May marks Mesh Awareness Month. It is an important opportunity to recognise the experiences of women and families who continue to live with the devastating consequences of pelvic mesh implants. For many women, what was presented as a routine procedure became the beginning of years of chronic pain, trauma and life-changing complications. Women who sought treatment to improve their quality of life instead found themselves facing severe physical pain, loss of mobility, loss of independence and, in many cases, profound impacts on their mental health and well-being. What made those experiences even more distressing is that so many women felt ignored or dismissed when they first raised concerns about the complications that the implants were having in their bodies. Too often, their pain was minimised and dismissed. Clearly, their voices were not listened to. That is not simply inequality but the reality of medical misogyny.

Today, we must acknowledge the courage and determination of all the women who refuse to stay silent. Through tireless campaigning and advocacy, many have helped to bring national attention to the serious risks associated with transvaginal mesh procedures. They have pushed for greater accountability, improved patient safety and better support services. However, while progress has been made, many women still live with the long-term consequences and damage caused by the mesh implants. They continue to struggle to get the specialised support and care that they need. We must ensure that those affected are listened to, treated with dignity and given access to the services and treatments that they need. They deserve financial redress and redress in terms of their surgeries. They deserve all the support that they can get, and they deserve it now. The Julia Cumberlege report was published in 2020 — six years ago. The rate of progress has been very slow for those women. They have spoken out on really difficult personal issues and are still waiting, so many years later, to see proper progress.

I finish by paying special tribute to Mary McLaughlin from Mesh Ireland. I have had the honour and privilege of campaigning alongside that woman for the past 10 years. That is how long the women have been campaigning and shouting about their terrible experiences. I thank Mary for everything that she has done for the mesh-injured community across the island. I sincerely hope that we can see proper progress in the time ahead.

Mr Buckley: This morning, there is a sense of seething anger in our communities as they continue to digest the news of the lenient sentence that three boys in England — two were 14 years of age and one was 13 — received for the act of rape. They lured two young girls — a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old — to a location in Hampshire in England and raped them, videoed it, taunted them and put the video on social media for the world to see. In an act of sadistic cruelty that falls so far short of what anybody should expect from our justice system, those three individuals, when they came before the court, were spared jail and given youth rehabilitation orders. What does that say about the British justice system? What does it say to the victims of rape across the country? What does it say when victims go through trials dealing with some of the most hideous crimes, yet the system is lenient on the offenders and puts their needs, cares and wants before those of victims?

Why does that matter in this House? It matters because there is an attempt in the House to raise the level of criminal responsibility from what it currently is — 10 years of age — to the age of 14, which is what some in the Department of Justice propose. Under that proposal, one of those boys would not have faced any form of judgement. It is despicable in the extreme.

What message does that send to the rapist? What punishment, in this case, was there? There was no punishment. It is a prime example of the lenient sentencing that continues to dominate our judicial system. Our prisons are no longer a place to be feared. The punishment no longer fits the crime. It is high time that society got tough on crime and ensured that victims are centred in all of our approach.

Ms Nicholl: Not that long ago, a swim school in my constituency of South Belfast closed down overnight. I was surprised by the number of parents who were impacted on by the closure, and I have been working with them for the past couple of months to get compensation. One constituent who contacted me said that they could not really afford the swimming lessons as it was but recognised that swimming was a life skill for their child. They had been asked to pay cash upfront, but their being out of pocket meant that their child probably would not be able to go to swimming lessons, as they had really had to scrimp for to pay for it.

That started me on a piece of work with Greenwich Leisure Ltd (GLL) on making swimming accessible for every child. We know that swimming is part of the Northern Ireland curriculum, but it is not mandatory, nor is it consistent in the way that it may be in other parts of the UK. There is no minimum standard. GLL told me that the number of children who can swim 25 metres unaided is declining. Right now, 30% of children leave year 7 unable to swim 25 metres. If that number continues to decline, we will reach a stage where we have a whole generation of adults who are unable to be safe in water.

I am really passionate about it: swimming is an essential life skill not just for water safety but for its health benefits. We know what the cost of physical inactivity is to the economy. It is a no-brainer. We need to make sure that every child is able to swim.

Another point made to me is that what happens is that children go swimming maybe for one term of the year. They will get the bus to the swimming lesson. Then they will stop going. It is not consistent. They would be better off going every day for one week, and they would be a much better swimmer.

We can do a lot around policy work that is being done not just with the Education and Communities Departments but with Infrastructure. The key barrier to being able to swim is the cost of transport. Swimming lessons in themselves are a lot cheaper, so it is about access to the swimming lessons. There is a lot more that we can do. It is relatively cheap. Look at what is being done in Manchester: for very little money, they have been able to make a tangible difference. All of us in the Assembly can get behind this and make sure that every child who leaves primary school is able to swim 25 metres.

Ms Sheerin: Tourette's Awareness Month takes place from 15 May to 15 June. Tourette's is a condition that suffers a lot of bad press, mainly down to the fact that it is widely misunderstood. People who live with the condition of Tourette's are often the butt of the joke. They suffer misinformation and are mimicked and mocked at every turn. I am proud and privileged to know personally a number of people in my constituency and across the North who have the condition of Tourette's and are involved in the Tourette's support group. They do amazing work for families, particularly young people and children who suffer with Tourette's. Their stories are heartbreaking. The testimony that I have listened to would bring tears to a stone.

People often make fun of the condition. We see it represented in the media, films and TV shows as something that is humorous and can be mocked, as demonstrated recently in the news story around the awards show in the wake of the amazing film, 'I Swear', which I encourage people to watch, tough as it is to get through. I have been told by people who have Tourette's that their tics, which they cannot control and which are often debilitating, are made worse by the fact that the general public and people who really should know better end up making their condition worse and making life tougher for them. I have heard of young people being admonished in the cinema, in church and in queues in shopping centres for something that they cannot control, which worsens the anxiety that they suffer as a result of their condition.

What is more frustrating than all that is the fact that our statutory services, which should be offering support to our children and young people in particular with Tourette's, end up making life worse for them. The Department of Health and the Department of Education are ill equipped to deal with the condition. There is no specific training service for educational psychologists in the Education Authority regarding Tourette's. In a response to a recent Assembly question, I was told that there is no specific treatment path in the Department of Health for people with the condition. Tourettes Action produced an amazing video to raise awareness of the condition that was not mainstreamed by the Education Authority, despite promises that it would be, and the Department of Health does not hold data on the number of people across the North with the condition.

All that leads to misinformation and people fighting for years to get a diagnosis, and then they cannot access the support that they need because of the lack of awareness and understanding of Tourette's. Therefore, during Tourette's Awareness Month, I ask you all to be kind and remember that people with Tourette's cannot control it.

Mr Frew: We in the Chamber know only too well that Sinn Féin does not govern well. It cannot build infrastructure; it cannot get a Budget that can be agreed; it cannot spend money effectively and efficiently; it cannot get net zero targets right; and, through its intervention, it chases jobs away from Northern Ireland instead of encouraging jobs here. It seems that Sinn Féin is not even good at being in opposition in the Republic of Ireland because it did not win two by-elections that you would have expected it to win, one of which was in Dublin Central, which is in the party leader's back garden.

The BBC quoted a Sinn Féin source saying:

I suggest that Sinn Féin does not care too much about listening to voters and acknowledging the real issues. That is the problem with Sinn Féin. While it has its head in the sand, those results will continue to come in. It is about Sinn Féin getting it right. It is about time that Sinn Féin listened to the people. It is about time Sinn Féin listened to its support base in the Republic and in Northern Ireland. It needs to shape up and get its act together because, when it does not govern well here, it affects us all. It is not in opposition here; it is in government. We need the party to get its act together and get with it.

Sinn Féin has failed countless times on many serious issues, not least immigration and net zero: woke nonsense. It is about time it changed. I hope that, with the battering down South in the Republic in those two by-elections, Sinn Féin will continue to do its U-turns and start governing well.

Mr Donnelly: May is Coeliac Disease Awareness Month. It is a condition that affects about one in 100 people in the UK, and it is estimated that around 64% of those people remain undiagnosed. It is a serious autoimmune condition in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues when gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, is eaten. Symptoms can be recurrent, persistent or unexplained. They may include but are not limited to fatigue, stomach pain, nausea, anaemia and neurological issues. The only treatment is a strict, gluten-free diet for life, but that is far easier said than done.

People often think that only bread and pasta contain gluten, but it can turn up in all sorts of places. It can be hidden in soups, sauces, processed meats, soy sauce and snack foods. Some alcoholic drinks also contain gluten, particularly beers and ales.

For many people with coeliac disease, eating out can be stressful rather than enjoyable. Even very small amounts of gluten can cause harm, and cross-contamination from shared utensils, fryers, chopping boards or preparation areas can make food unsafe. Research suggests that consuming more than 10 mg of gluten a day may be enough to damage the small intestine of someone with coeliac disease. Gluten can also appear in products that many people would never think of, including medications, supplements, lip balms and even children's play dough.

Although awareness has improved over recent years and gluten-free options are now widely available, many people still face daily challenges when shopping, eating out or trying to access reliable information. Greater understanding and awareness can make a meaningful difference for those living with coeliac disease and those struggling with symptoms who have not yet been diagnosed or received the support that they need.

Mr Burrows: Last week, I brought to the public's attention the extraordinary number of physical assaults on our teachers and classroom assistants. There have been 2,500 assaults. What is even more shocking, however, is the sexual harassment, abuse and extreme misogyny to which some young boys are subjecting our female teachers and female pupils. Up and down the country, I have heard shocking evidence, which has been repeated at Committee and in my constituency office, of upskirting, downblousing and cyber-flashing. I have heard of young boys openly telling teachers what they would like to do to them, where, how and when, and of them standing in front of a female teacher saying, "You can't tell me what to do. Only a male teacher can". I have heard about deepfakes and extreme objectivisation. When a teacher raises the issue on behalf of a pupil or themselves, they are often made to feel as though they are the problem. The school asks, "What do you want us to do?", because, too often, their hands are tied when it comes to making decisive interventions.

We need parents to get a grip on what their young people watch, because, at home, they are watching extreme porn and extremely misogynistic influencers. That is polluting their young brains. The extreme outworking of that is what we saw in England, where two 14-year-old boys raped two schoolgirls, videoed it and put it on social media. Followers called the schoolgirls "slags". What signal did the judge send? Not one single day will be spent in prison by those two boys, who were aided and abetted by a 13-year-old. What signal does that send to people about reporting that kind of extreme misogyny? We therefore have to get a grip on the issue in our society.

The case has now been dealt with, so I can comment on the following aspect. The judge laboured over all the mitigating factors but not over the aggravating factors. I see that happen time and time again. I was with Women's Aid last week. The crime of non-fatal strangulation was brought in by this place to great fanfare. It seeks to put men who strangle women behind prison bars. The vast majority of men who commit non-fatal strangulation do not get a custodial sentence, yet that crime is at the far end of the homicide timeline. It is a red flag that a man will murder a woman in the community.

For some reason, the human rights lobby, which has a role to play, has got us into a position in which public authorities focus on the rights of suspects and perpetrators and attach greater weight to them than they do to the rights of the victim. A recalibration is needed. We need parents to step up and make sure that their children are not watching extreme porn online. We need to support decisive interventions being made when boys treat women and girls in our schools like that. It has to end, and we need to address it.

Mr Speaker: Michelle Guy has sought leave to present a public petition in accordance with Standing Order 22. The Member will have up to three minutes in which to speak.

Mrs Guy: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Dromara, which is a small, rural village in Lagan Valley. The origin of the petition was a road safety meeting in February, which was attended by residents and local PSNI officers and supported by Sorcha Eastwood MP, my colleague David Honeyford MLA and local councillors Aaron McIntyre and Kurtis Dickson. On that night, the community spoke with real concern about speeding, including racer-type behaviours, in the village and on the roads leading to it. Concerns about parking and the lack of street lighting on roads entering the village were also raised. Almost 400 residents have signed the petition, which calls on the Department for Infrastructure to prioritise road safety for Dromara's residents. In particular, the lack of traffic calming is attracting antisocial, dangerous, racer-type behaviours that create a nuisance and a hazard for residents. On behalf of the residents, I urge DFI to make road safety improvements to the village before we are left with a tragedy.

Mr Speaker: The petition will be forwarded to the Minister for Infrastructure, and a copy will be sent to the Committee for Infrastructure.

I invite Members to take their ease.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): The Speaker has received notice from the Minister of Finance that he wishes to make a statement. Before I call the Minister, I remind Members that they must be concise in asking their questions. This is not an opportunity for debate, and long introductions will not be allowed.

Mr O'Dowd (The Minister of Finance): The Executive set out their vision for the delivery of public services in the Programme for Government (PFG). It is clear that transforming how we deliver our public services is central to meeting many of the challenges that the Executive face now and in the years ahead. 'Reform and Transformation of Public Services' is one of the nine key priorities in the Programme for Government.

At its core, transformation is about changing how we work so that our services become more effective, more resilient and more sustainable. That is increasingly important, given the constrained public finances. That means designing services around citizens, not organisational structures; cutting duplication and unnecessary complexity; planning our workforce better so that skills are used where they add the most value; using data wisely in order to guide decisions and support early action; focusing on prevention, not just managing demand; and making sure that every pound that we spend delivers the greatest possible impact, achieving better outcomes and responding to the changing needs of the community. The transformation fund has a part to play in that.

Last March, I announced £129 million for six transformation projects across healthcare, special educational needs, justice and infrastructure. While those projects are still in the relatively early stages of delivery, it is encouraging to note the progress that has been made. Almost 300,000 more people now have access to a wider range of supports in their GP practice. Some 114 student classroom assistants are availing themselves of new training, which is aimed at supporting children with additional needs in early years settings. Four thousand policing hours have been saved, and court time is already being freed up in order to focus on the most serious criminal cases. The first natural flood management scheme has already commenced, with the potential to reduce flooding, improve water quality and make our urban spaces greener. A digital maturity assessment of the Civil Service has been completed, and work is in train to appoint a chief digital officer. Those are just some of the early successes resulting from the fund.

The 2026-27 year marks a critical expansion phase for the transformation fund and the projects that it is supporting. I am therefore pleased to announce today that, following a second call for proposals from Departments, £102·6 million of public funding from the transformation fund is being provided to a further six projects across the public sector to support the continued transformation of our public services. That £102·6 million represents the funding remaining from the original £235 million.

These projects have significant potential to bring about visible and lasting improvements to the way in which front-line services are delivered, including to some of our most vulnerable people. They will embed prevention and early intervention to ensure that people can access the services that they need where and when they need them; address some of the most pressing public-sector challenges; and lay the foundations for system-wide reforms to improve the sustainability of services in the longer term. I am pleased that additional funding of £30 million from the National Lottery community fund and approximately £5·6 million from the Shared Island Fund has been leveraged to support those transformative projects.

The six proposals for which I am announcing funding today reflect the board's recommendations. They have been agreed by the Executive, and I have secured the release of the funding from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The successful proposals and funding amounts are as follows.

There will be £42 million for the Department of Health's ePharmacy primary care digital reform programme, which will deliver digitisation of the over 45 million prescription items issued each year, replacing paper prescriptions with a faster, safer, electronic system capable of being available 24/7, including in evenings, at weekends and on bank holidays. The investment will also enable over 500 community pharmacies across the region to provide more clinical services, improving access to care closer to home and reducing reliance on GP appointments. It will deliver reduced waiting and travel time for patients, with no need to collect paper prescriptions from GP practices or out-of-hours centres, improving convenience and patient experience, as well as reduced pressure on GPs, hospitals and emergency services, supporting the shift of care into the community and allowing clinicians to focus on more complex cases. It will also deliver £18 million cash releasing savings over 10 years, with £3·5 million recurring annually, alongside reduced paper use and travel, contributing to more sustainable health services.

There will be £29·2 million, also for the Department of Health, for Together for Families. The investment will deliver earlier, easier help for families at scale, strengthening 29 family support hubs that offer region-wide coverage and adding new, targeted neighbourhood support so that families get timely help before problems escalate. It will also deliver reduced pressure on crisis services and £30 million investment from the National Lottery Community Fund for a transformative new partnership between the Department of Health, the fund and the voluntary and community sector. Better value for the public purse will be achieved by shifting spend left: investment will focus on prevention and reduce reliance on high-cost interventions at a later stage. There will also be measurable efficiency and savings potential, with a moderate estimate of around £34 million in savings over 10 years.

There will be £16 million for the Department for Communities for its pathways to work and well-being proposal. Together with a contribution from DFC, the investment will deliver a redesigned health and work model delivered in partnership with the Department of Health and the Department for the Economy and offering stronger integration between employability and health services to support more people to find and sustain employment; support for 3,750 people to improve work and well-being outcomes, through working in partnership with local organisations; a commission on work and well-being, bringing together independent experts across health and employability, to set a forward approach to tackling health- and disability-related economic inactivity and shape long-term recommendations for scaling up interventions; a shift to early intervention and prevention, responding to individual needs as early as possible to prevent long-term economic detachment and higher-cost public-service interventions in the long term; and an estimated long-term financial benefit of £103 million, driven by reduced duplication, higher productivity and lower long-term demand on public services.

There will be an allocation of £6 million to the Department of Finance for its digital workplace solution. The investment will deliver modernised records and information management across the Civil Service, replacing an ageing system that is used by 26,900 staff; recurring savings of £400,000 per year from 2029-2030, once legacy support and infrastructure costs are removed; reduced duplication and manual handling, supporting faster access to information and freeing staff time for citizen-facing activity; and the secure foundations required for the future use of AI-enabled tools in government, strengthening transparency and decision-making over the long term.

There will be £5·3 million for the Department of Finance's NISRA data linkage office. The investment will deliver two data pathfinder projects to highlight the power of integrated data for policymaking across key PFG priorities; a stronger data-driven culture to provide better outcomes for citizens; and improved financial sustainability by delivering efficiency gains.

Finally, £4 million has been allocated to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for a bovine TB pilot for the transformation of disease control delivery. That investment will deliver a first-of-its-kind regionalised research pilot to redesign the control of bovine TB; a preventative, evidence-led approach to target a disease programme that is currently costing over £60 million per year; Shared Island funding of approximately £5·6 million, which equates to roughly €6·4 million; and direct savings of around £275,000 by 2028-29, with substantially larger savings expected as the model scales up. Long-term projections show that a sustained reduction in disease prevalence could deliver annual savings of up to £2·8 million, improving the financial sustainability of a programme that has cost around £750 million over the past 20 years.

Members will know that I am ambitious about what I believe transformation can deliver. The transformation board is, too. In fact, reflecting the strength of applications received, the board has recommended supporting another five projects that it assessed as meeting the criteria for funding but which could not be funded from the £235 million funding envelope that is currently available. As Members will be aware, I have proposed in my draft Budget that additional funding be allocated by the Executive for transformation over the Budget period. Once the multi-year Budget has been agreed, it will therefore be my intention to seek Executive agreement that those proposals be supported, using the additional funding set aside for transformation in the Budget. I will update Members further at that point.

I once again express my thanks to the public-sector transformation board for all its work throughout the process, and to Departments for their engagement with the programme. The board will continue to monitor the delivery of all funded projects. It is supported in that regard by the delivery unit, based in the Executive Office, which will work very closely with my officials. Dependent on the outcome of discussions about the draft Budget, I intend to engage further with the board on determining the best approach for commissioning future bids to enable wider reform and transformation. The transformation fund on its own will not deliver all the reforms required to our public services. It is essential that we look to embed successful approaches in mainstream delivery and that we share learning and good practice. The transformation board is providing an active challenge function, encouraging projects to be innovative and agile and to take managed risks and adopt new ways of doing business. That is critical, given that demand for services is outpacing the funding available.

It is clear that the transformation fund can make, and is making, an important contribution. The projects being announced today will unlock additional funding, encourage cross-sectoral and cross-departmental collaboration, and maximise the impact of transformation funding in driving improvements in service delivery, promoting prevention and early intervention approaches, delivering cost savings and placing public services on a more sustainable footing. Today's announcement therefore represents another important milestone in the transformation journey.

Mr O'Toole: Minister, a very important milestone would be setting a Budget. While many of the allocations that you have just announced are welcome and, I am sure, noble in intent, others will ask interrogatory questions about them. You have announced a £100 million allocation today while tens of billions of pounds of public spending is, effectively, irregular because we are operating without a Budget. Will you confirm that, if the Executive do not agree a Budget, notwithstanding the fact that you and I want the UK Government to provide more money, the Executive will be imposing further austerity in public services here because we will be able to spend only a percentage of last year's Budget?

Mr O'Dowd: Matthew O'Toole continues in his guise as the glass-half-empty guy in the Assembly. I have just announced hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in public services, following up on transformation and making real, tangible change to people's lives that they are witnessing on a daily basis. I remind him that almost 300,000 more people now have access to a wider range of supports in their GP practices; 4,000 policing hours have been saved; 114 student classroom assistants are availing themselves of new training; the first natural flood management scheme has commenced; and a digital maturity assessment of the Civil Service has been completed. Today's announcement will continue that programme of change across our Civil Service and public services. Citizens whom he and I represent will see a real change in how their public services are delivered. I will continue to engage with the British Government around the Budget to ensure that this place is fairly funded, and I hope that I have his support in that task.

Ms Forsythe (The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Finance): Minister, with the current financial pressures, the Executive are united in calling for extra funding. Therefore, when £235 million of transformation funding has been made available by the UK Government, it is critical that we get it out and show that we can use it well. However, I have sight of correspondence from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Chair that expresses her concern that funding has been surrendered for both the 2025-26 Estimates and the 2026-27 Estimates. Minister, of the money that has been announced and allocated to date, can you confirm how much has been spent and how much has been given back to the Treasury? Are we guaranteed that we will get back in the future the money that has been handed back or is that lost?

Mr O'Dowd: I do not have in front of me sight of the letter to which the Member refers. The first tranche of projects has taken longer to get off the ground than was first hoped, but I have announced, as I reiterated to Mr O'Toole, where we have seen significant progress. There have been delays in some of the projects, particularly in Education with delivery of the new investment in SEN. I would like to see that increase significantly over time, as I am sure that everybody would, and I believe that it will as time moves forward. There has also been a delay in some of the Justice funding being delivered. I think that that is related to the ongoing industrial action from barristers and so on. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but no money has been lost to this project. The Treasury has agreed to re-profile all that funding. As I said during my address, the board, the delivery unit in the Executive and individual responsible Ministers have to ensure, as they continue to monitor this, that spend is taking place at the speed that we want.

Miss Dolan: I welcome the positive announcement from the Minister. Minister, on the announcement around TB, what engagement have you had with the Agriculture Minister?

Mr O'Dowd: I commend that project. Not only is it being brought forward through this transformation fund but it has been able to secure Shared Island funding. Where we can lever in further funding from other organisations or other areas, that is vital. I have had engagement with the Minister on that matter. Clearly, it is an important project for animal welfare and for the welfare of farmers because diagnosis of TB in a herd can be quite detrimental to farming families. The cost of this over the past number of years has continued to rise, so we have to get a handle on it, and I think that this project will be a way forward.

Mr Tennyson: Thank you, Minister, for the statement. It is definitely a positive development. You have already outlined some of the benefits of the spending in tranche 1. Are we likely to see any financial savings, and when are we likely to see those as a result of that investment?

Mr O'Dowd: I set out in my statement areas where there will be projected savings as part of the transformation. They are of higher scale in some areas than in others. Obviously, the importance of this is to save funds that can be redirected back into public services. The public seeing an improved public service, whether that improvement is in health, education, bovine TB or wherever it may be, is the important element of the transformation fund. It is about where we are improving public services and seeing the public get easier access to those public services and seeing real results for themselves.

Mr Chambers: Minister, thank you for your statement. I especially welcome the allocation of £42 million for the e-pharmacy programme. Will the Minister agree that this will come as an important development to place the pharmacy sector on a sustainable footing and one that, equally importantly, will facilitate service growth?

Mr O'Dowd: It is an important development over a wide range of areas. It reduces bureaucracy in GP services and allows easier access for the public to the prescriptions that they need, with those being forwarded to their pharmacist. Obviously, it highlights again the importance of pharmacy in the primary care sector. It is a project of modernisation. In this day and age, GPs should not have to be signing a paper prescription that is then brought or sent to a pharmacist, and then dealt with etc. It is a great project, and I think that it will make a huge difference to GP services, to GPs, to those who use a GP and to those who use a pharmacist.

Miss Hargey: Minister, last year, when you released tranche 1 of the fund, you said that it would make a real difference to improving health outcomes, supporting children with special educational needs and improving the justice system. Do you believe that tranche 1 has achieved those aims?

Mr O'Dowd: I do believe that it has achieved those aims. As I said to a previous questioner, there have been delays and maybe not as quick a pace as we would have liked to see in some projects at the start. That is now steadily uplifting and moving forward, however, and I read out the figures. Even with regard to GP services, almost 300,000 more people now have access to a wider range of supports in GP practices as a direct result of the transformation fund. We just talked about the next stage with pharmacies, so this is about real change happening in real time, and the general public seeing the difference.

Mrs Erskine: I thank the Minister for what he has announced. My question is whether the transformation fund is delivering quickly enough, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. Just last week, we had another damning report about planning delays. Money was announced over a year ago, yet not a single independent inspector has been appointed. What is the hold-up when planning is so critical to the economic prosperity of Northern Ireland?

Mr O'Dowd: The two projects that are on time within the first tranche are in the Department for Infrastructure, namely flood management and the recruitment of independent inspectors. I understand that advertisements have been out for that recruitment process, which may have already closed, and applications are being assessed. With regard to tranche 1, therefore, DFI is on time.

Miss McAllister: Minister, the announcement refers to £29·2 million for the Department of Health for 'Together for Families' and an additional £30 million from the National Lottery community fund. However, quite often, when budgets are stretched, it is the community and voluntary sector non-statutory funding that is cut first. Will you speak a little more about that new partnership, and what it will do to stabilise a sector that provides a lot of the early intervention work, or have those issues not been explored in detail with the Health Minister?

Mr O'Dowd: That is an innovative new partnership between statutory children's and social care services and the voluntary sector, providing enhanced, targeted and more easily accessed help for families before problems escalate. It will mean fewer children entering care and more returning to their families where it is safe to do so, improving outcomes for children and addressing rising and unsustainable demand. It will also deliver measurable efficiency savings. It seems somewhat crass to talk about efficiency savings when talking about such an important issue but around £34 million over 10 years can be directed back into the service. The details and minutiae of those matters are best discussed with individual sponsoring Ministers on how exactly that will work, how they will work in tandem with the community and voluntary sector, and how they can support each other in delivering better outcomes for children.

Mr Gildernew: I thank the Minister for his statement. There is some really good value in those announcements, but will there be a further round of funding, Minister, to build on that momentum?

Mr O'Dowd: I have set aside around £100 million in the draft Budget for transformation. When we do have a final Budget, I would like to see money set aside for transformation. I have witnessed at first hand not only how that transformation pot has delivered outcomes for the public but how, when the Civil Service is given a bit of space and some money to be innovative and to allow it to plan and to do things differently, it presents projects such as those that have been successful. Therefore, let us give our Civil Service and public servants the space and money to transform, and then we see the changes on the ground.

Mr McNulty: I thank the Minister for his statement and for the moneys that will be afforded to many people in need.

Minister, on AI's involvement in digital maturity, you mentioned:

How exactly does your Department plan to ensure that those tools are used responsibly? Given that the Epic Encompass digital system, which cost billions, has slowed patient throughput because of its over-cumbersome demands on medics, have you considered the effects of increased digitalisation?

Mr O'Dowd: My Department's project is about enabling the Civil Service and the wider public sector to move forward in an informed way on digitalisation, the use of AI and so on. We have to learn from elsewhere and ensure that, at its heart, the project is people-focused and based on the needs of the community — the public whom we serve — and staff and that there is a human focus at all times. AI can and will be transformative for our public services, but we cannot and should not replace the emotion and connection that only humans can bring to the equation.

Ms Ferguson: I am absolutely delighted about the investment in our family support hubs. There are eight in my trust area and four in the city. I declare an interest, in that I used to manage the ETHOS family support hub. The hubs do amazing work to support our most vulnerable children and families. I am sure that our hubs are listening in today. Has the Department of Health indicated when the investment will become operational?

Mr O'Dowd: I cannot provide a time frame for that today. Ongoing engagement will be required between the Department and the hubs, the community and voluntary sector and all the others involved. We want to see the funds make a difference on the ground as quickly as possible. As I said, the delivery unit in TEO, the board, and, indeed, Ministers will monitor the progress of individual projects in the time ahead.

Mr Durkan: I thank the Minister for his statement. There is plenty of positive news in it. Will he provide more detail on the pathways to work and well-being proposal, particularly given its apparent similarity in aim to the employability work that was being carried out by organisations funded by the Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) until the local growth fund fiasco torpedoed that work? The UK Government did that, but there was also a lack of support from the Executive. How does that transformative work differ from what has already been done?

Mr O'Dowd: The pathways to work and well-being proposal has been allocated about £16 million, plus there is to be a contribution from DFC. It will be an innovative health and work model to support 3,750 people to find sustainable employment. It will be piloted in two council areas on a cross-departmental basis and in partnership with a range of local organisations. A commission on work and well-being will be established to shape long-term plans to scale up interventions. That work will be carried out over time with DFC and, as I said, with local organisations, which, in many instances, I suspect, will be from the community and voluntary sector. As the Member pointed out, the sector has significant experience in the area. It is up to the sponsor Departments to finalise how the project will proceed.

Mr Gaston: The Minister's statement allocates £4 million to a new bovine TB pilot. Will the scheme involve a badger cull? Many in the farming community believe that we will simply be throwing good money after bad until we finally address the main cause of the spread of bovine TB.

Mr O'Dowd: That is a matter for the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It will be for him to decide the best way forward for bovine TB control.

Mr Carroll: I agree with some of the comments that the Member opposite made about AI and about digitalisation more generally. There is a lot of concern about AI being rapidly rolled out without the associated risks and the costs that are taken up by large companies being fully taken into account.

We need more detail about the family support hubs. Will there be new staff, or will current staff be repurposed? Where will the staff be located? What services will the family support hubs provide?

Mr O'Dowd: I understand the detail required by the question, but the detail of the administration of the projects is best placed with the Health Minister, the Communities Minister or the project manager of each project.

Mr McGrath: I welcome Health's ePharmacy programme. Many members of the all-party group on community pharmacy have called for that for a long time, so it is good to see it eventually arrive. The fact that funding is available for organisations and groups is welcome, given that no Budget has been agreed, which is causing a lot of uncertainty.

Does the Finance Minister know whether the £30 million from the National Lottery is for one year, two years or five years? It is great to see that money being invested, but, once it has run out, a void will be left that will have to be filled by the Department.

Mr O'Dowd: The investment will be made over a number of years. The principle for all the transformation projects is that they are funded through transformation funding but the Departments will adopt them and bring them into their funding baseline. That is the objective. It is about long-term change, not four or five years of change. It is about Departments doing things differently by embedding the projects by using the seed funding and then making that the way that they do things in the future.

Mrs Dodds: I do not think that anyone can doubt that this is a good news day, particularly given the investments that you have announced for the Department of Health. While the money is welcome and very much needed, I would warn that, without sustainability in the pharmacy sector, we will have a continuing problem. How do you intend to monitor the programme of delivering e-prescriptions, given that Encompass took many years and there were many problems with it before it was fairly successful?

Mr O'Dowd: The transformation board and the delivery unit in the Executive Office will continue to monitor the delivery of the projects. The relevant Minister also has a responsibility, and I have no doubt that the relevant Committees will play their part.

Mrs Dillon: I thank the Minister for his statement. I agree with others in the House that this is a positive day, given the investment into our health services in particular. Investment of £5·6 million has been brought in from the Shared Island Fund. Minister, do you think that Departments are doing enough to leverage funding from the Shared Island Fund? Other Members and I were at a North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association meeting on Friday. During some of the conversations at that meeting, it was mentioned that there is good potential for Shared Island funding, particularly towards transforming how Health is delivered in specific areas such as women's health and children's cancer across the island and that that could be done better if we were to do it together. Shared Island would be a way to get to that place. Is enough work being done to leverage that?

Mr O'Dowd: It has to be a two-way street. I encourage my Executive colleagues to look at all areas in which they can achieve additional funding. In this instance, it is Shared Island Fund funding. There has to be alignment between that and our Programme for Government. Better engagement at the level of the Taoiseach's office and the Executive would be beneficial to ensuring that funding coming forward, which, it has to be said, is welcome, will further align with our Programme for Government and therefore fits into the plan for delivery and change that we want to see across the board. Without a doubt, Shared Island funding is making a real difference not only through this project but elsewhere.

Mr Kingston: I welcome the allocation of the remainder of the £235 million provided by HM Treasury for transformation projects that improve efficiency.

Minister, you said that the public-sector transformation board recommended supporting another five projects that meet the criteria for funding and that you want to see those supported. Have you approached or will you approach Treasury to make the case that, if it can provide further transformation funding, that will be money well spent, as it will deliver ongoing savings on an invest-to-save basis?

Mr O'Dowd: The simple answer is yes. We have proven time and time again that we can and will deliver on that funding and that we can deliver real change; indeed, those who work on the front line of public services are making a real change as a result of it. Therefore, I will continue to lobby Treasury on the matter.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): As no other Members have indicated that they wish to ask a question, that concludes questions on the statement.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): I call the Minister of Finance, Mr John O'Dowd, to move Further Consideration Stage of the Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): As no amendments have been tabled, there is no opportunity to discuss the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill today. Members will, of course, be able to have a full debate at Final Stage. Further Consideration Stage of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill is, therefore, concluded. The Bill stands referred to the Speaker.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): I call the Minister of Finance, Mr John O'Dowd, to move Further Consideration Stage of the Bill.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): As no amendments have been selected for debate, there is no opportunity to discuss the Administrative and Financial Provisions Bill today. Members will, of course, be able to have a full debate at Final Stage. Further Consideration Stage of the Administrative and Financial Provisions Bill is therefore concluded. The Bill stands referred to the Speaker.

Mr O'Dowd (The Minister of Finance): I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): The Business Committee has agreed that there should be no time limit on the debate. I call the Minister to open the debate on the motion.

Mr O'Dowd: As Members will be aware, the regulations follow from the Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 26 February. During Assembly debates on the Bill, I said that a baby loss certificate scheme was needed to close the gap in our registration service, so that we could treat losses that occur early in pregnancy in the same way as we treat births and deaths. I said that I wanted to bring forward a baby loss certificate scheme that is shaped around the needs and experiences of families to provide comfort and support as they navigate their grief. I set out my commitment to establish the scheme as quickly as possible.

Today's debate provides an opportunity for us to make an important step towards delivering on those commitments. Since the passage of the Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Act through the Assembly, my officials have worked at pace to finalise the regulations to provide the framework for a baby loss certificate scheme. My motivation, their motivation and, I suspect, the motivation of others who will contribute to today's debate is the same: to progress the scheme so that we can formally recognise losses prior to the end of 24 weeks of pregnancy. We know that a baby loss certificate cannot take away the pain that parents feel following such losses, but it is my hope that, by formally recognising their loss through a certificate that validates the life that was lost, we can provide them with a measure of comfort; help them to start a hard conversation with a friend or family member; or give them a way of reaching out for help in their grief.

The details of the regulations before the Assembly have been shaped around what the public told us during our consultation last summer. They include specific provisions about what a baby loss certificate will contain; the form of the application required for the issue of a baby loss certificate; how the General Register Office (GRO) will maintain records of the baby loss certificate; and how an amendment may be made to a certificate. In short, they provide the formal legal provisions required to support the operation of the scheme and the issue of baby loss certificates from the General Register Office.

Throughout the process, I have repeatedly been impressed and humbled by the candour and honesty of families who have been affected by baby loss. The regulations bear the imprint of more than 1,100 people and organisations who responded to our consultation. I record my gratitude to all those who took the time to share their experiences with us and for their bravery in setting out how deeply their loss impacted on their lives. Their insights into how the scheme should look and work have helped us design a certificate scheme that will meet their needs as fully as possible. I know that, for many, it will have been a difficult process, and I am grateful for their contributions.

I welcome Members' comments and commend the regulations to the House.

Mr O'Toole (The Chairperson of the Committee for Finance): I will speak to the Finance Committee's scrutiny of the statutory rule. I thank the Minister for moving the motion.

I reassure the House of the Finance Committee's due diligence in scrutiny of the original legislation and the regulations that are before us today. I, too, warmly welcome the regulations as an effective final legislative stage in the evolution of the baby loss certificate scheme.

In many ways, this journey — at least in relation to the Northern Ireland Assembly — began when the Finance Committee urged the Department to include such a scheme in legislation. Today marks the final legislative hurdle. I am confident and, obviously, I hope that the House will affirm the rule, which the Committee has agreed. Today's motion will allow for the formal launch of the scheme and, I hope, make a real and meaningful change that will enable those who have lost a baby prior to the end of the 24th week of pregnancy to have formal acknowledgement and recognition of that loss.

The Committee first considered the policy proposal at SL1 stage on 15 April 2026, noting that the regulations set out how the scheme would operate, who might apply, the form of application, conditions for application and the information that the certificate would contain. The Committee was, as ever, mindful of the need to balance appropriate scrutiny with the swift implementation of the scheme. In line with agreed procedures, the Committee issued a short call for views on the proposal and agreed to schedule an oral briefing with relevant officials. The briefing took place ahead of schedule on 29 April. At that time, members were able to question the Registrar General on a number of important issues, including geographic considerations: where the recipient of the certificate had been living in Northern Ireland when they experienced the loss, but was now living in another part of these islands or, indeed, further afield; whether surrogacy use would preclude eligibility for certificates; and the timeline and anticipated demand for the scheme. Members also considered the layout of the certificates and the contents of template certificates and agreed to send those to the relevant stakeholders, including some of the organisations that the Minister mentioned — people who have experienced this loss themselves and who had given us candid and, at times, moving evidence throughout the scrutiny process. Having satisfied itself with the clarification and detail provided by officials, the Committee was more than content to approve the proposal. It was formally laid as a draft statutory rule on 11 May and, at our meeting of 20 May, the Committee noted the advice of the Examiner of Statutory Rules that the rule did not need to be drawn to the attention of the Assembly. The Committee is content that the rule be affirmed today.

On behalf of the Committee, I also take the opportunity to thank the Registrar General and his team in the GRO for developing the scheme so quickly and for providing ongoing clarification. That is important to note, because often, as MLAs, we hold not just Ministers but officials to account, and, sometimes, hold their feet to the fire, and often, in the Chamber, we criticise or lambast — sometimes in the Opposition, with my other hat on, we do that — but, on this occasion, I genuinely thank officials who worked to design a novel scheme with sensitivity and professionalism, very quickly. I put that on the record on behalf of the Committee. They answered all our questions thoroughly and comprehensively.

As I said, although formal scrutiny of the rule began in April of this year, it would be remiss of me not to point out that our Committee, on a cross-party basis, has been key to the development of the scheme. I acknowledge the constructive work that we have done with the Minister and his officials on this. We have been pushing for the scheme since 2024, when we returned after our absence. The applicable primary legislation — the Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill — was introduced to the Assembly on 25 March 2025 and received Royal Assent on 25 February 2026. Throughout the Committee Stage of the Bill, members of the Committee were cognisant of the fact that it was an immensely sensitive topic. We heard directly from parties who had experienced loss, and it was, at times, highly emotive and affecting. With the indulgence of the House, I will give one example. On 4 June 2025, we heard from the Forget-me-not Group — a wonderful group that works alongside the bereavement midwives in the Ulster Hospital. We heard from that group about what the scheme will mean for those personally affected by baby loss and how it will make a real difference for them. They will, for the first time, have formal recognition of the emotional impact of their losses. I am honoured to stand up on behalf of the Committee and say that placing the scheme into law is important for all those who have been touched by baby loss. It matters for all the babies who have been lost, including Rosa, Matilda, Leanora, Eli and Dotty, and Noah and his brothers and sisters. Those are some of the losses we heard about in our Committee. Today marks the culmination of the process, whereby bereaved parents can have recognition of their loss. I am proud to support the passing of the regulations on behalf of the Finance Committee, and I look forward to the scheme's being implemented in the very near future.

In a non-Committee capacity, on behalf of our party, I commend the regulations. I also commend the officials and, indeed, the Minister for working constructively with the Finance Committee to bring the regulations forward. This is a small advance when it comes to what we do in the Assembly, but it will be deeply meaningful for people who are placed in this position. Not everybody will suffer a loss of pregnancy, but there will be a significant number of people for whom this is an important recognition. I thank the Minister for bringing the regulations, and I thank his officials for working on them. I also thank my colleagues on the Finance Committee. We are very pleased to have been able to work constructively to bring the scheme forward and conclude the process today.

Miss Dolan: Baby loss has a profound and heartbreaking impact on parents. The development of the regulations will enable that loss to now be formally acknowledged and is an example of a positive change that we can make in the Assembly when we work together in partnership.

Last October, I hosted an event here to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week and had the privilege of hearing from many families with lived experience about the effect that such a loss has on their lives. I am honoured to have been part of the Committee that has helped to shape this compassionate legislation. I commend the Finance Minister and his officials for their work in bringing the scheme forward, but, most of all, I thank those who have suffered the loss of their little angels for their bravery and their contributions. I also thank the organisations that support them. While baby loss certificates cannot and will not take away the pain of their loss, I hope that access to those certificates can help people during an extremely challenging time of their lives.

Ms Forsythe: Today, I remember all those babies who left us too soon. They lived, were precious, were loved and were lost from this earth to heaven. Every single one of their lives mattered, and they should always be remembered and recognised by more than just the memories and hearts of their parents and families. I especially think of the babies who passed away before 24 weeks of pregnancy and currently have no formal record of their life.

I welcome the progression of the baby loss certificate scheme in Northern Ireland, and I am honoured to have played a part in bringing it forward. It has been a true example of the Finance Committee working with the Department and the Minister. That collective work will mean that, in the coming weeks, baby loss certificates will be in law in Northern Ireland. This could easily have passed with a press statement from Ministers about future policy intent with nothing being delivered, but that has not been the case. Joined-up working and support to deliver the scheme has ensured that important and compassionate legislation will be introduced here.

As today's motion will allow for the formal launch of the scheme without delay, we should note, for caution and clarity, that that does not mean that parents can go out and get a certificate immediately this afternoon. There will be a process. I ask the Minister to provide some further detail on that, including the dates, in his closing remarks. Families have suffered loss, heartbreak and trauma, and it is important that, at the final stage of the process, their application and the administration of the scheme to get their certificate happen smoothly and compassionately. Again, I thank the Minister for bringing the regulations forward, and I thank his departmental officials, especially the Registrar General, for being available to the Committee at any time and for bringing the scheme forward at pace.

Throughout the Committee Stage of the Bill, members of our Finance Committee worked carefully and sensitively on the topic. We heard directly from those who have experienced loss. At times, it was emotional, but we took those personal testimonies on board and did our best to ensure that they are reflected in the legislation and the regulations. I thank all those who engaged with the Committee, including the Forget-me-not Group and the bereavement midwives. I also thank the local groups and individuals who reached out to me directly on the issue. This means so much to them all. All their stories have impacted on us, and, today, as the scheme moves into law, we should pause and acknowledge that, in the Assembly today, we are formally recognising those babies. Today really matters, and I am proud to be here to welcome the scheme. One of the first motions that came to the House after I joined the Assembly was on the need for baby loss certificates in Northern Ireland, and, today, we are delivering on that. Every life matters.

Miss Hargey: I welcome the progression of the regulations. Back in early 2024, when these institutions got back up and running, the then Finance Minister, Caoimhe Archibald, set out her intention to bring forward legislation and, importantly, create a certificate scheme. I am delighted that, following the legislation that the current Finance Minister, John O'Dowd, introduced in 2025, we now have the regulations that will see that happen. As other Members have mentioned, that was on the back of a motion in the Chamber and engagement with families and lobby organisations out there that are impacted on by the issue. I want to say thanks to them —.

Mrs Dillon: Will the Member take an intervention?

Miss Hargey: Yes, of course.

Mrs Dillon: Does the Member agree that it was those parents and the organisations that support parents who have lost their babies that really drove the issue, and that that is exactly how politics should work? They told us where the gap was and what they needed. They had a Department and Minister who listened, and delivered, at every point. The Committee also listened. That is really important. It is exactly how politics should work: we identify the gap by listening to people on the ground, and we address it.

Miss Hargey: The Member is absolutely right. It reflects that good work. We have heard from all the Members who have spoken so far about the good work that was done between the Minister, the Committee, the organisations and families on the ground and, of course, the Minister's team, who are here today. I want to give my thanks to all of them. It is an important issue, particularly for those parents who want their loss to be recognised. Not everybody does — it is important to say that. For those who do, it is important that they will be treated, and issued with certificates, just like anyone else who loses a loved one. It is an important step. It shows the importance of the Assembly in passing legislation that meets the needs of our communities and society more broadly. We will now see the production of a baby loss certificate coming sooner rather than later. I commend the Minister, his team and, indeed, the Assembly as a whole.

Mr Harvey: Today is a deeply important and emotional moment for so many families across Northern Ireland. The approval and progression of baby loss certificates is not just a policy decision but an acknowledgement of grief, love and lives that mattered deeply to parents and families. For too long, many people who experienced pregnancy loss or baby loss felt that their heartbreak was invisible or unrecognised. Today's change helps to say clearly: your loss matters, your baby mattered and your grief is real. I am proud to stand alongside friends, family members, dedicated staff and constituents who have campaigned, shared personal stories and pushed for compassion and recognition. Their courage has helped to bring us to this point. The issue has never been about politics alone but about humanity, dignity and giving comfort to those who carry loss every single day. While no certificate can remove pain, it can provide meaningful recognition and reassurance that parents are not forgotten.

I thank everyone who has supported the progress, including advocacy groups, healthcare professionals, bereaved families and colleagues across the Assembly who recognised the importance of that step. Today will bring comfort to many people across our communities. I hope that it also sends a message that Northern Ireland is listening with compassion and acting with care. While there is still more work to do to support bereaved parents, it is an important milestone and one that many families have waited a long time to see. To every parent and family who is affected by baby loss, I say this: we remember, we recognise and we stand with you.

Mr O'Dowd: Since I came into the Chamber this morning, we have discussed hundreds of millions of pounds and passed the Further Consideration Stage of two pieces of legislation — one on how we regularise spend and the other on how we monitor spend. None of those is more important than what we are about to do now with the baby loss certificates and the regulations around them. It has been a simple, collective act of the Assembly and the team that we rely on, whether the Registrar General and his team in the GRO or the broader public service and Civil Service, to enact the legislation.

This is a team effort today. We are about to clear the final legislative hurdle to ensure that we can issue certificates to those who have lost a baby before 24 weeks.

As all Members who contributed to the debate said, the certificate will not replace the loss of the baby. What it will do is acknowledge the loss, the baby and the family's grief. Families will reflect on their loss in different ways, but we have allowed baby loss certificates to be issued. Without patting ourselves on the back, we should therefore be collectively proud that we have done that in a collegiate and respectful way.

As Members said, the scheme will go live in mid-June. The Registrar General and his team and I have put the resources in place. We expect there to be significant demand for certificates in the first weeks and months. We will work our way through the applications and respond to families as quickly as possible. The scheme will be widely advertised, and we will hold an event ahead of the launch date to ensure that the public are aware of the scheme and know how to apply to it. We will then get certificates out to families as quickly as possible. The final piece of clunky legislation that we have to produce in this place for the scheme will hopefully pass in the next few minutes, and the next step will be to issue certificates.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): I ask Members to take their ease while we make a change at the top Table.

Mr Gildernew (The Chairperson of the Committee for Communities): I beg to move

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes in which to propose the motion and 10 minutes in which to make a winding-up speech. All other Members who are called to speak will have five minutes.

Mr Gildernew: Since the formation of our Committee, members have maintained a strong and continuing interest in the development of the anti-poverty strategy. We recognise that poverty is one of the most serious and persistent challenges facing communities across the North. It affects children, women, older people, disabled people, carers, workers, families, rural households and urban communities. It is also a challenge that does not sit neatly within the remit of one Department. Poverty is shaped by income, employment, housing costs, childcare costs, transport costs, energy costs, educational opportunity, health inequalities and access to advice and support. Although the Department for Communities leads on the strategy, the Committee believes that the final anti-poverty strategy must genuinely be a whole-of-government strategy and a whole-of-society strategy. The Committee's message is straightforward: local government is already part of the anti-poverty response, and the final strategy must now make it part of the anti-poverty system.

The Committee decided to engage directly with all 11 councils because local government is already delivering services in the heart of our communities and with direct experience of the lived reality of poverty. Councils are not distant from the impact of poverty; they see it at first hand. They see it through advice services, fuel support, food insecurity, social supermarkets, employability programmes, community planning partnerships, hardship schemes, and the community and voluntary organisations that they support.

At a dedicated meeting on 5 March 2026, the Committee for Communities heard evidence from representatives of all 11 councils. The evidence was powerful, practical and, at times, stark. One of the strongest messages that we heard was that local government is often the glue that holds local interventions together. Councils convene partners. They know their communities. They know where need is hidden, and they know which organisations are trusted by local people. They know that, in one place, the urgent need may be debt advice; in another, it may be transport; and in another, it may be help with school uniforms, heating oil or food. However, we also heard that councils can end up leading anti-poverty work by default, without the authority, the formal mandate or the resources to do so properly. That is not sustainable. If the Executive want councils to help deliver the strategy, that role must be defined, resourced and respected.

The first issue, therefore, is not whether local government has a role; it already has one. The question is whether that role will be formally recognised, properly resourced and built into the delivery strategy of the architecture of the final strategy. Therefore, we recommend giving local government a defined role.

The Department should explicitly define the strategic and operational role of local councils in the anti-poverty strategy. The Committee further recommends that community planning partnerships (CPPs) should be formally designated as the primary local delivery vehicles for the strategy. CPPs already bring together councils, statutory bodies, health, housing, and the community and voluntary sector. They are already in place. The task now is to give them the necessary mandate, accountability and shared outcomes to make the delivery real.

Recommendation 2 is about moving away from short-term funding to sustained prevention. Defining the roles of councils is only one part of the answer. The second issue is whether the organisations expected to deliver anti-poverty work have the stability to do so. Therefore, our second recommendation concerns funding.

The Committee heard repeatedly that the current system too often forces councils and community organisations into a cycle of firefighting. Short-term, competitive, late-year funding pots create uncertainty, inefficiency and, in some cases, the loss of highly skilled staff. That is particularly damaging for community advice services, wraparound support services and front-line organisations that deal with people in crisis. The Committee therefore recommends that the Executive align the anti-poverty strategy with a ring-fenced, multi-year funding settlement. No strategy can be transformative if the organisations expected to deliver it are left living hand to mouth from one financial year to the next.

Recommendation 3 is about making poverty reduction a test across government. Funding individual programmes will not be enough if wider public policy continues to create or deepen poverty. That brings me to the need for poverty reduction to become a test right across government. The third recommendation is for the introduction of mandatory, anti-poverty impact assessments across government. Members heard that too many policies are made without sufficiently exploring whether they will reduce poverty, worsen poverty or simply move the pressure from one part of the system to another.

The Committee believes that, similar to rural proofing, all new public policies, structural investments and budgetary decisions across Departments should be rigorously assessed for their impact on poverty before they proceed. If the anti-poverty strategy is to mean anything in practice, poverty reduction must become a test applied across housing, health, education, transport, infrastructure, childcare, skills and economic policy.

Recommendation 4 is about using data to target help before crisis point. If we are serious about prevention, we need to know where need is emerging before households reach crisis point. Our fourth recommendation is for the establishment of a cross-departmental data-sharing framework. We heard a very simple point directly from local representatives, which is that people do not know what they do not know. Councils may know that need exists, but they are often prevented from identifying precisely where it is and who is most at risk. Without appropriate, secure and GDPR-compliant data-sharing, interventions are less targeted and less effective. Councils told us that data on health, housing, education, justice and benefits, as well as local knowledge, must be brought together more effectively and cohesively so that support can be proactive rather than reactive. That is not about data for its own sake; it is about getting the right help to the right people earlier and before problems become crises.

Recommendation 5 is about tackling the structural causes of poverty. Better data and targeting absolutely matter, but they must sit within a wider shift from crisis response to structural prevention. The fifth recommendation is that the final strategy must prioritise structural drivers and prevention. Emergency support is necessary, but it is not enough. Food parcels, fuel vouchers and hardship payments can provide immediate relief but, by themselves, do not provide a route out of poverty. The strategy must, therefore, include measurable and time-bound actions on the structural drivers of poverty. That means a coordinated approach to increasing social and affordable housing supply; robust interventions in the private rented sector; progression of a fully funded regional childcare strategy; and dedicated actions on rural poverty, including a specific, funded focus on protecting and expanding rural and community transport networks. The issue of transport came through strongly in the evidence that we received, especially from rural councils. Poor transport limits access to work, education, health services and advice. The Committee is clear that the strategy must move beyond managing the symptoms of poverty and begin to tackle the conditions that keep people trapped in poverty.

When it comes to embedding lived experience, the Committee was clear that policy must not be designed around people without being shaped by people. Our final recommendation is that lived experience must be embedded permanently in the governance, monitoring and evaluation of the anti-poverty strategy. Co-design cannot mean a one-off consultation.

The Committee welcomes its engagement with the Minister and his officials on that work. At the Committee meeting on 14 May, the Minister indicated that there is a duty to listen, reflect and change course where necessary. The Committee welcomes that approach. Members also heard a commitment to maximise collaboration and share delivery across government, local government and wider partnerships. That is also the right direction. The purpose of the motion is to encourage and strengthen that approach. The final strategy must be more than a statement of ambition; it must be costed, measurable, locally deliverable and accountable. The question for the Assembly, therefore, is whether the final strategy will simply acknowledge work that is already being done or build the structures needed to sustain and strengthen that work and introduce significant new measures.

To close, I will reflect on a phrase that was used in a Committee session: we were asked to be bold, to be compassionate and to be change-makers. That is a fair challenge to this Assembly, the whole Executive and the Minister for Communities. The Committee's report offers the Minister a practical route to improve the final anti-poverty strategy. It asks that local government be given its proper place and voice and that local interventions be supported. Most importantly, it asks that the anti-poverty strategy not simply describes the scale of the problem but creates the structures, resources and accountability to tackle it.

I commend the motion to the House and urge Members to support it.

Mrs Cameron: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Committee's 'Report on Engagement with Local Government on the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy'. I thank the Chair for outlining what is contained in the report, including the proposals. The Committee's report makes it clear that councils are already doing significant work on the ground to support people who face poverty. Councils are involved in emergency hardship support, social supermarkets, labour market partnerships and local interventions, which are often delivered closest to the people who are most in need. That local insight is, of course, incredibly valuable, and it should help to shape the final strategy.

I welcome the work of the Communities Minister. The draft strategy is rightly focused on practical outcomes; on work and employment as the best route out of poverty; and on the need to make work pay. If we are serious about tackling poverty, we must also be honest about what works. Sustainable employment remains one of the most effective ways to lift people and families out of poverty, but that must mean decent, stable work that pays and provides dignity, purpose and a genuine route to a better standard of living.

We must also, of course, be clear that tackling poverty cannot simply be about handing out money. Support will always be necessary for those who need it most, but, as a society, we also need to focus on creating wealth, growing opportunity and building an economy where people can provide for themselves and for their families.

The Committee report rightly also highlights child poverty, including evidence that more than 110,000 children across Northern Ireland live in poverty. That should be a concern for every Member of the House. No child should have their life chances limited by the circumstances in which they are born. Of course, that cannot be achieved by the Department for Communities alone. It is not simply a DFC strategy; it must be an Executive strategy. The Department for the Economy has a role in jobs and skills; the Department of Education has a role in attainment and opportunity; the Department of Health has a role in addressing barriers to employment; and the Department for Infrastructure has a role in access to work, training and services. All of those things are reasons why it is important that all Departments are brought fully into the strategy. It also means that the Executive and the Finance Minister must ensure that the appropriate funding is made available to support the delivery of the anti-poverty strategy going forward. At present, no additional funding has been allocated to implement —.

Mr Gildernew: Will the Member give way?

Mrs Cameron: I will.

Mr Gildernew: I agree that work is a crucial part of it, Pam. Does that indicate that the Members opposite will support the 'good jobs' Bill that will, hopefully, come through soon?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Pam, you have an extra minute.

Mrs Cameron: I thank the Member for his contribution. That is another piece of work that needs to be investigated fully. Industry has made its concerns clear that time is needed to investigate that legislation fully before committing to it.

At present, no additional funding has been allocated to implement the strategy, and that is a serious issue. A strategy without the necessary funding risks becoming a statement of intent rather than a plan for delivery. That is why I find the position taken by the Sinn Féin members of the Committee difficult to reconcile with the approach of their Executive ministerial colleagues. At times, they appeared to be completely at odds with those colleagues. People who are in poverty do not need mixed messages; they need delivery.

One area of delivery that is particularly important is fuel poverty. It is especially prevalent in Northern Ireland because of our heavy reliance on home heating oil. That has a particular impact on older people, many of whom are on fixed incomes and are more vulnerable to cold homes. There is a clear link there with the active ageing strategy and ensuring that older people can live safely, warmly and with dignity. That is why the upcoming £100 oil heating intervention by Minister Lyons is important. It is practical help targeted at the real pressures that households in Northern Ireland face. That is being delivered while Sinn Féin Ministers have shirked their responsibilities for that. However, short-term support must sit alongside long-term investment. We all understand the importance of that. The warm healthy homes fund, which was agreed as part of the Executive's fuel poverty strategy, must be properly resourced if it is to improve homes, reduce bills and protect vulnerable households. It is therefore deeply disappointing that that fund did not receive an allocation in Sinn Féin's draft three-year Budget.

The strategy must remain focused on making work pay; creating wealth; tackling child poverty; Executive-wide delivery; and properly addressing the issue of fuel poverty. If we are serious about that delivery, the Executive must ensure that the strategies are properly funded. On that basis, I support the motion.

Ms Mulholland: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Communities Committee's report on engagement with local government on the draft anti-poverty strategy. First, I thank the clerking team for all their hard work in taking forward my suggestion to compile the report, once we realised just how valuable the contribution of councils was to the conversation. I support the report and its recommendations. It reflects exactly what all of us have heard from councils, advice workers, community organisations and families, who tell us every day that poverty cannot be tackled from a desk in Stormont alone. It has to be tackled in our towns and villages and our rural communities alongside the people and organisations who understand those communities best.

The report is clear that councils are already delivering vital anti-poverty work from hardship funds through to social supermarkets, labour market partnerships and local advice networks. Right now, however, they are doing that work without clarity, authority, funding or the status that they need and deserve. The draft strategy has to do more to recognise councils and community planning partnerships as central delivery partners. That matters in all constituencies and communities, but, in my council area of Causeway Coast and Glens, where poverty is not hidden, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) latest analysis estimates that 23% of people live in poverty — the second-highest rate of any council area in Northern Ireland. That shows why the anti-poverty strategy cannot be generic. It has to recognise regional imbalance, rural poverty and particular pressures facing communities such as Causeway Coast and Glens, where housing, transport, low pay, seasonal work, childcare and skills gaps interact to make people feel trapped in poverty.

The strategy also has to recognise that, while the Minister frequently references getting people into work, work alone is not the route out of poverty. The JRF has shown that the majority of people in poverty now live in working households, including 64% of children in poverty and 60% of working-age adults in poverty. Work is not the only route, although it is one of them. Almost half of workers have experienced low pay in the past five years. Yes, we need jobs, but we do not need just any jobs; we need good jobs. We need secure, fairly paid work with enough hours and flexibility for parents and carers and real accessibility for disabled people and others facing barriers to employment. That is particularly important, again, in my area of Causeway Coast and Glens. The local labour market partnership has identified economic inactivity, unemployment, disability employment and skilled labour supply as key priorities. The economy inactivity rate is 30·1% when the Northern Ireland average is 26·3%, and the area has the lowest employment rate in Northern Ireland. That is why the anti-poverty strategy must be directly linked to good jobs, skills, childcare, disability employment support and regional economic development.

Mr McMurray: Will the Member give way?

Ms Mulholland: Yes.

Mr McMurray: Does the Member agree that the strategy cannot sit in isolation, solely in the Department for Communities?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Sian, you have an extra minute.

Ms Mulholland: Thank you.

Absolutely; it has to be owned across the Executive, by the stakeholders and particularly in partnership with our councils.

Councils cannot be treated as optional consultees or convenient delivery partners. They have to be placed on an equal footing with the Department for Communities in the delivery of the strategy. Councils know where the poverty is. They know which organisations already carry out effective engagement. They know where the transport gaps stop people getting to work, where advice services are under pressure and where local interventions already hold families together. They cannot do that work properly on short-term, competitive, last-minute funding. Poverty is long-term, and the response has to be long-term too.

The Programme for Government aims to have:

and that is a right and proper ambition, but, for communities such as mine, it has to be more than just a slogan. It has to be backed by targets, funding, local delivery solutions and structures capable of changing lives and a focus on the life-cycles of individuals, because the experience of poverty is not linear. The final anti-poverty strategy therefore has to be measurable, properly resourced, co-designed with people who are living and experiencing poverty now and delivered in genuine partnership with local government. It has to put councils and community planning partnerships at the heart of delivery, not just at the margins. People do not live in silos, and they do not simply need help to survive poverty; they need a real and genuine route out of it.

I support the report, and I urge the Minister and the Executive to act on its recommendations in full.

Mr Butler: The Ulster Unionist Party welcomes the report and the engagement that led to it that was carried out by the Communities Committee with councils from across Northern Ireland. What comes through clearly from the evidence is that councils already deal with the realities of poverty every day. We know that, we see it, and we hear it from our council colleagues throughout Northern Ireland.

As we have heard, poverty is not a nuanced issue. It has been discussed in reports, but it is more than statistics. In reality, it is families struggling with the price of food, and we know about the one-way trajectory of the price of food at the moment, given the geopolitics in the Strait of Hormuz. The price of fuel and oil is an issue that we face almost annually because of our dependence on oil, and there are further escalating housing costs. That predominantly sits with older people, single-parent families and individuals with disabilities who cannot work. Crucially, it really incapacitates parents, who find themselves each summer worrying about how they will get their kids back to school and how they will feed them over the summer. We have had to battle for summer activities for special schools here. The list goes on.

The report is also right to highlight the growing issue of the working poor. Many people experiencing poverty are already in employment but do not have a high enough wage to meet their mounting bills. The reality is that poverty can affect people in a wide range of circumstances. There are people who work hard every day but still struggle to make ends meet. There are others who are not in work due to ill health or disability or, crucially, due to caring responsibilities. We must never overlook the role of our carers, particularly young carers. It is really important that we support them. Difficult life circumstances and personal pressures can place an enormous burden on some individuals and families. That is important, because, too often, commentary can become overly simplistic and political points can be made when, in reality, as the previous debate on baby loss certificates highlighted, poverty pervades every community in Northern Ireland.

It is imperative that those in positions of responsibility be careful in their approach to poverty and hardship and in the language that they use. The issues affect real people, real families and, often, sensitive personal circumstances. Public debate should seek to reduce division and stigma, rather than contribute to it. Good anti-poverty policy should not be about drawing lines between people or suggesting that some forms of hardship matter more than others; it should be about recognising need, reducing poverty and ensuring that people are treated with dignity and supported during difficult periods in their life. One of the strongest themes running through the report is that too much of the current response remains focused on crisis management and firefighting, rather than prevention and tackling root causes. I know that the Minister has stated that tackling those root causes is a priority for him and the Department.

We cannot continue waiting until people reach crisis point. The failure to tackle poverty properly does not result in the problem disappearing; it simply creates greater pressures elsewhere, particularly in our health and social care system. That is a really important point, because there is a direct link between poverty and poor physical health, poor mental health outcomes, social isolation and educational attainment. Fuel poverty, poor housing and financial stress all contribute to worsening outcomes and increase pressure on individual families and already stretched public services. That is why we need an invest-to-save approach that is focused on prevention and early intervention. Investment in housing, childcare, employability, transport and poverty measures should not simply be viewed as expenditure or expensive. It was good to see in the earlier debate about the allocation of moneys that £16 million is being allocated to employability. Preventative investment will improve lives while helping to reduce long-term pressures elsewhere in the system. The debate on holiday hunger reflects that clearly. Whether people view the legislation as workable or not, the issue is there, and it is a valid debate in which we will engage.

The report is also right to call for a genuinely joined-up approach across government. Poverty does not fit neatly into one Department and certainly not the Department for Communities on its own. Housing, health, education, childcare, transport and the economy — to mention a few of the issues — are all interconnected policy needs. We really need to accept that reality. Things need to change.

Ultimately, the report should be utilised to shape a more joined-up, preventative and person-centred anti-poverty strategy that is focused on —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Time is up.

Mr Butler: — tackling hardship.

Mr Durkan: Councils here have become leaders in the fightback against poverty. They provide the services that people have to turn to when they cannot heat their home or afford food or when they are drowning under the pressure of the cost of living. That reality is felt across all council areas, but it is felt differently in different areas. It is felt extremely acutely in Derry and Strabane.

Time and again, we have seen councils step in to provide support, often in the absence of Executive support. Local government is therefore leading the way.

The report lays bare the scale of the challenges facing our communities. There are 110,000 children living in poverty here. The Member who spoke previously shared the statistics. He also pointed out that we have among the highest levels of working poor. Families are working hard and doing everything right, yet they still cannot make ends meet.

The report also rightly highlights the structural drivers of poverty. As usual, housing is high among them. We know that we have a severe shortage of social housing, with families trapped on waiting lists for years while living in worsening conditions. Far too many people continue to be forced into an increasingly unaffordable and largely unregulated — under-regulated, I will say — private rented sector. Since 2006, the number of people living in the private rented sector has more than doubled. The number in that group who are living in poverty has increased by over 60%. Despite that, progress on meaningful reform of the private rented sector has been too slow and too limited. There has been no ban on no-fault evictions, there have been no rent controls of any type and there has been a reduction in supports such as the local housing allowance and the discretionary housing payment.

For many families, it is no longer a temporary hardship but a never-ending battle. Advice services are under severe pressure. Funding for the community and voluntary sector has been slashed. Councils themselves are being pushed to breaking point. That makes it all the more baffling that the Department did not engage adequately — that was councils' view, not just my view or that of the SDLP — on the draft anti-poverty strategy. If councils are expected to be key delivery partners, and they clearly are, why were they not central to the process from day 1? Sadly, that is typical of the silo approach taken to government here that has held this place back for years. While people struggle, councils have been left to try to pick up the pieces, and with fewer and fewer resources to do so.

It is the councils with the biggest problems that are least able to do that. In 2009, the poorer councils, as I call them, availed themselves of over £20 million in rates support grants. That funding now totals just over £3 million. The impact has been devastating for councils' ability to deliver services and devastating for an already, by definition, deprived area, because the pressure ultimately falls back on to local ratepayers, many of whom are themselves struggling. Although there has been a recent review of the rates support grant, it looked at how the pie was cut rather than at the size of the pie itself. The Minister of Finance is not responding to the debate. I know that he is a former chef, so we will be continuing to appeal to him to rustle up an adequate and protected budget for the rates support grant, because this is about equality.

Despite all of that, councils continue to do extraordinary work on the ground. That is leadership. That is local councils stepping up when the Executive have failed people. They are not making excuses about decimated budgets. Instead, they are looking to find solutions and are working with others on the ground to identify and provide those solutions. Perhaps leadership here should take a leaf out of their book. Councils understand their communities, the deprivation locally, where intervention is needed most and what intervention is needed most. They demonstrate repeatedly that, when properly resourced, they can deliver meaningful change. They cannot do it alone, however.

Poverty is not inevitable. It is a political choice, but so is ending it. If the anti-poverty strategy —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Your time is up, Mark.

Mr Durkan: — is to mean anything at all, it must come with real Executive investment and through genuine partnership with local councils.

Mr McHugh: The recent 'Report on Engagement with Local Government on the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy' is welcome and important. First, I place on record my sincere thanks to councils right across the North, their elected members and officers, community planning partnerships and the wider community and voluntary sector for the extraordinary work that they continue to do every single day to support people and families who are experiencing poverty and hardship.

We all know that councils are already on the front line of that work, whether delivering emergency hardship schemes, supporting social supermarkets, funding breakfast clubs, helping families with cost-of-living pressures, investing in labour market partnerships, supporting rural transport initiatives or coordinating local wrap-around services. Time and again, councils are stepping in to support communities when they need it most.

The report highlights powerful examples. We heard about councils allocating hundreds of thousands of pounds from their own budgets to support vulnerable families. We heard about emergency fuel support schemes being overwhelmed within hours because the level of need is now so severe. We heard about community advice services bringing millions of pounds in unclaimed benefits back into local economies and about local interventions helping to tackle isolation, food insecurity and barriers to employment. That is essential work. The key message from the report, however, is clear: councils cannot continue to be treated as an afterthought in the development and delivery of an anti-poverty strategy. They have to be part of it.

Recommendation 1 is particularly important because it recognises what many of us already know, which is that local government and community planning partnerships must be formally embedded at the heart of delivery. Councils understand their communities. They know where the pressures exist. They know the local organisations delivering real change on the ground, and they have already demonstrated their ability to bring agencies and communities together in practical, effective ways. If we are serious about tackling poverty, councils must be centrally involved in shaping, coordinating and delivering that work, and that must come with proper support and resources. Councils cannot continue to carry additional financial burdens without sustainable funding from central government.

Some 80% of council income is solely from rates collection, and that must pay the bills. Rates collection must pay the wages of our brilliant council staff and the services that they deliver. The report rightly calls for multi-year, ring-fenced funding arrangements that move away from short-term firefighting and allow councils and community organisations to plan ahead properly. That is essential because tackling poverty cannot rely on yearly uncertainty. Late funding allocations are forcing local government to absorb increasing pressures through an already stretched rates base. Properly resourcing councils would allow them to continue to deliver vital support, ease the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on families, strengthen preventative services and build long-term, sustainable interventions that break cycles of poverty rather than simply managing crisis after crisis.

The report provides a clear road map. I want to leave you with its last paragraph:

The challenge of the report, therefore, is for the Minister to listen, act and ensure that local government is recognised not simply as a stakeholder in this work but as an essential partner in delivering meaningful change for communities across the North.

Mr Bradley: I welcome the motion, and the engagement that was had with local government regarding the anti-poverty strategy. It became clear through the Committee's work that councils across Northern Ireland already carry out critical front-line interventions to support families who face hardship every day. However, councils delivered the clear message that the draft strategy lacks the ambition, clarity and structural integration that are needed to genuinely tackle poverty. During the engagement process, we heard deeply concerning evidence that over 110,000 children in Northern Ireland live in poverty and that many working families are unable to make ends meet despite being in employment. We also heard shocking evidence that, in some rural areas, people die having spent the last years of their life in poverty.

The report recognises that poverty cannot be solved through temporary crisis measures alone. Food parcels and emergency fuel payments may provide short-term relief but do not address the root causes of deprivation. The Committee heard repeatedly that issues such as housing shortages, rising childcare costs, poor rural transport and economic inactivity trap people in cycles of poverty. Those structural problems require coordinated cross-departmental solutions.

One of the strongest recommendations in the report is the proper integration of local government in the delivery of the strategy. Councils' community planning partnerships already bring together health services, housing bodies, voluntary organisations and communities; the partnerships must now be formally recognised and properly empowered.

The report highlights the damaging impact of short-term funding models on the community and voluntary sector. Vital advice services and support organisations spend too much time chasing insecure funding instead of delivering services to those in greatest need. If the strategy is to succeed, it must move beyond managing poverty and begin to prevent it. That means sustained investment, joined-up government, better data-sharing, and meaningful engagement with those who have lived experience of poverty.

The Executive have an opportunity and a responsibility to deliver a strategy that is robust, properly funded and capable of making real, lasting change in people's lives. Economic activity from regionally balanced investment in employment opportunities is a must. We must provide people with the financial means to enable them to rise above the poverty trap. We, therefore, need an integrated strategy that aligns financial help in the cost-of-living crisis; economic investment; education; proper social housing; and training to help those in poverty to escape that trap.

With two district electoral areas (DEAs) in the top 10 areas of deprivation, Causeway Coast and Glens is Northern Ireland's forgotten area. Wedged between Londonderry and Belfast, investment there is piecemeal, higher education provision there is piecemeal, and the effects of regional balance have not yet touched my area. I urge the Executive to ensure that the anti-poverty strategy is properly funded. It is not good enough to talk the talk; we need action and proper funding to initiate the strategy — and to do so with our council partners. I learned just last week that the Causeway Coast and Glens area has the highest level of obesity among young people in Northern Ireland and high levels of economic inactivity.

I welcome the motion.

Mr Carroll: I commend the Committee for its important work on the report. The North has waited at least 20 years for an anti-poverty strategy, but all that we have had so far is a vague, unambitious document with no clear targets, no concrete measures and no overarching commitment to eradicating poverty. That is a slap in the face to the working-class communities who have been ground down by poverty and deprivation under the Executive's watch. During the two decades of waiting, poverty has skyrocketed, so much so that, in my constituency of West Belfast, one in three children lives in poverty and, in the past five years, the number of pensioners living in poverty has almost doubled. Those are completely disgraceful and shocking statistics.

The Committee's report paints a stark picture. I will quote from it:

That is probably the Committee being polite. As the Committee's report states:

on the ground — Committee members have spoken to that — and does not properly define the role of community planning partnerships. The Committee heard about:

That is the same sector that has recently been decimated by cuts resulting from the introduction of the local growth fund. The Minister says that he wants the anti-poverty strategy to support people into work, but he and his Executive colleagues refused to step in with the necessary funding when Westminster cut off access to employability support for some 11,000 people here.

I hope that the Minister's revised strategy will be a dramatic departure from the current draft, which is totally unacceptable and unsuitable.

I also hope that we see it soon and that working-class communities are not strung along further by the Minister.

As the Committee's report makes clear, poverty can be tackled only in a genuinely cross-cutting, cross-departmental way. The structural drivers of housing, childcare, rural transport and sustainable funding for the community and voluntary sector, which Members have mentioned, require coordinated action to be taken across every Department, and I am not convinced that that is happening yet. The answers to tackling poverty are not a mystery; they are in the expert panel's original proposals. The Minister does not need to look far.

The decades-long failure to properly tackle poverty belongs to the entire Stormont Executive. Rather than facing that failure, we have seen cynical sectarianism, the scapegoating of migrants and the mimicking of Trump's anti-woke, pro-war crusades from the Minister and the DUP in general: anything to distract from the housing crisis and the general rise in poverty, healthcare waiting lists and other things that are wreaking havoc on our communities.

Mrs Erskine: Will the Member give way?

Mr Carroll: Sure.

Mrs Erskine: The Member has just read out a long list of point-scoring. If he cares deeply about anti-poverty, surely he should address anti-poverty rather than taking the political attack lines that always seem to come from his direction.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Gerry, you have an extra minute.

Mr Carroll: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

I do not know whether the Member was listening, but I have two pages of notes that I just spoke about. I urge her, if she wishes to reduce poverty, to put pressure on her Minister to start implementing the rent controls and the no-fault eviction ban to which the Minister and the Member's party are completely opposed. If the Member is interested in tackling poverty, she should put pressure on her Minister in that way.

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): I appreciate the Member's giving way. He frequently refers to the need for rent controls, yet all the evidence that we have from other cities such as Madrid and Berlin and from the rent control zones in the Republic of Ireland shows that they do not work. The Member previously committed to bringing forward evidence of how they work, but he has failed to do so. Is that because that evidence does not exist?

Mr Carroll: That is not true, Minister. I sent you a detailed document several weeks ago. If you have not read it, that is your fault. Maybe you should go and read it. It details the fact that most European countries and North American cities have a form of rent control. The Minister repeats the myth that rent controls do not work. They do not work for landlords, and maybe that is why the Minister is opposed to them, but they do work in that they reduce rent for renters. Minister, I suggest that you read that report and come back to me on it.

Westminster and Stormont could eradicate poverty if they wanted to. Instead, they hand tax breaks and rate reliefs to corporations that turn over millions and, in some cases, billions of pounds in revenue and profit while funnelling money away from public services and into the profiteering private sector, with no objection from this or any other Minister. Poverty is a political choice, and the Executive have chosen to make ordinary people poor while the rich get richer. Without mass pressure from below, Stormont, in its current form, will never do more than tinker at the edges. That has always been the way. In truth, it is people power that will force change and eradicate the scourge of poverty from our communities.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Minister, you have 15 minutes. That will bring us to after 1.00 pm, but that is fine.

Mr Lyons: Thank you very much, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank the Committee for the work that it has done on taking forward and developing the report. I broadly agree with the core finding of the report that local government is essential to tackling the problem of poverty — not just local government but all our delivery partners across society. Work will be required from the voluntary and community sector, churches, faith organisations, businesses and communities to make a real, lasting, long-term change.

I fully recognise the importance of local government in this area. Indeed, my officials have already taken steps to involve local government in the consultation on the anti-poverty strategy. Dedicated engagement sessions were undertaken with the Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) to provide an opportunity for direct discussions between officials and local government representatives. It is important that I put that on record, because some of the comments today, particularly from Mr Durkan, would make you think that there has been no engagement with councils, and that was certainly not the case during the consultation process. As I outlined, we had many events and engaged with representatives from nearly all the councils. We had written responses to the consultation from all the councils, and we have engaged on the report. It is unfair to say that there has been no involvement.

Many organisations, including local government, will be essential to the delivery of the strategy, and it is important to acknowledge that. We have a strong track record of delivery in partnership with councils, and we have well-established relationships with councils through the community planning partnerships so that we can develop housing, regeneration and employability services. We will continue to work in partnership through the community planning partnerships and other fora to deliver the anti-poverty strategy.

Work has also been undertaken with other key partners during and after the consultation, because we know that tackling poverty and its root causes requires system changes that nobody in the world has been able to fully achieve, but it is clear that, if we work together, we can make a lasting difference, and that is what I intend to do. We have already made a start on that. We did not wait for the anti-poverty strategy to be in place before we progressed some of the issues, including some that the co-design group asked us to take forward, and that is what we are doing. I welcome the report, and I will certainly recommend to my Executive colleagues that we take the recommendations forward. I am grateful to the Committee for its work.

I will refer to some of the comments that were made during the debate that are worthy of note. Pam Cameron rightly acknowledged that councils do significant work. She also highlighted an important issue that Sian Mulholland mentioned as well, and that is the importance of employment and ensuring that employability programmes are in place. Sian said that we needed to make sure that we help those who are in work, and I absolutely agree with her. One of my most pressing concerns is that we have people who are in employment and are going out to work and doing their best but feel penalised. They feel that they are not getting the support that they require. Not for one second have I said that work will be the silver bullet that fixes everything, although it is a very important step. The evidence shows that work can help, but it is also important because getting people off welfare and into work frees up huge sums of money for the targeted interventions that we need.

Many in the House are fed up with hearing me talk about the importance of getting people into work and dealing with our welfare system. There has been opposition to my approaches to tackling fraud and error in the welfare system. I make no apology for focusing on that and on the huge numbers of people in Northern Ireland who are economically inactive. Ten years ago, the working-age welfare bill in the UK was £75 billion in today's money. Today, that has gone up to £136 billion, which is an 80% increase. If we get people into work, it frees up billions of pounds that we can use in more targeted ways to help those who are most in need.

Mr Gildernew: Will the Member give way?

Mr Lyons: I will give way.

Mr Gildernew: I regularly challenge the term "economic inactivity", because it is often actually economic disadvantage or, potentially, discrimination. People are disadvantaged as a result of living in rural communities with limited access to transport or because of disability, and women are often carers.

Minister, do you agree that all the issues that we have raised today need to be addressed? Do you also agree that good jobs and the 'good jobs' Bill are part of the overall pattern?

Mr Lyons: Of course it is the case that all those issues need to be addressed. There is a myriad of reasons why we have so many people who are economically inactive. For some, it is by choice because of caring responsibilities or other issues; for some, it is because barriers are in place. Why are we not spending some money to tackle those barriers?

One of my biggest concerns is the fact that we have the highest welfare bill of any part of the UK and the highest disability rate of anywhere in the UK. We spend huge sums of money, and have done so for decades, and guess what? There has been no noticeable change or difference. We have to ask ourselves whether it is really working: are the billions and billions of pounds that we are spending actually making a difference? Are we paying people to stay unwell rather than investing in making them well? That is one of the big issues that we should be grappling with. That is the real scandal. It does not take up time on the airwaves or space in the pages of our newspapers, but it is a train that is coming down the track at us. It has been a problem for a long time, and we need to address it if we want to address all the other issues that come from it.

Absolutely, let us invest and make sure that we spend money on getting people better; getting people into a fit state to get into employment; and breaking down barriers, be they in childcare or access to jobs because of rurality or whatever else. We need good jobs. We will have the opportunity to talk about the 'good jobs' Bill. We need to make sure that that is fully investigated and that we achieve what we set out to do, because there are a lot of concerns in the business community as to whether the Bill will make that happen or make things worse.

That brings me on to another comment that Sian made. She is absolutely right that this cannot only be tackled from a desk in Stormont. I am glad that that message is starting to get across — I have heard it from a few Members today. As Sian said in response to an intervention from Mr McMurray, it requires a cross-departmental strategy. I have said that repeatedly, but not because I am trying to share this around or share the blame or criticism. If we want this to be effective, we have to have everybody buying into it. It is right that that is realised and that all the things that need to be in place are in place.

Issues about targets and outcomes were also raised. It is critical that we have in place measurable and effective actions and targets to measure them against, because we need to show that we are making progress. There is further debate and discussion to be had about the usefulness of an overall poverty target when we have limited levers to deal with it in the Assembly and through the work of the Executive. The UK Government, local government, the voluntary and community sector and businesses have a role to play, and individuals have a big role to play. I am more than happy to be held to account for the things that we have promised, and for the things that we can deliver on. There is a wider discussion to be had on an overarching anti-poverty target, but I am more than happy to explore that and to take the views of Executive colleagues on it.

What are the next steps? We have taken on board what has been said by partners in local government. Late last year, I shared the results of the consultation with all Ministers so that they could consider further actions that they could undertake to push the strategy forward. Officials in my Department have been engaging with their counterparts on how best to reflect consultation results in light of departmental priorities and available budgets. I was pleased to see that a number of stakeholders in the sector welcomed the report that we produced as being honest and open, and I take seriously the views of everyone who responded to the strategy. I have been clear from the outset that the strategy will change. I briefed the Communities Committee earlier this month, and I was clear that there will be substantive and substantial change. For example, the strategy needs to better reflect the fact that well-planned routes to employment can be a route out of poverty. We are taking forward significant new work to tackle economic inactivity. That work is core to reducing poverty.

The draft strategy does not fully reflect the scale of our intent and ambition on fuel poverty reduction. As Members know, officials in my Department have been working on the development of a new warm healthy homes strategy, which will modernise and, I hope, expand on the work of the affordable warmth programme. Given the exposure of the poorest households in Northern Ireland to a highly volatile energy market and, in particular, the cost of home heating oil, I believe that the final version of the strategy can be more ambitious in setting out the interventions that we will take in relation to fuel poverty.

I have therefore requested urgent and ambitious action to maximise all opportunities for collaboration and shared delivery across government, local government and broader partnerships; to exploit fully effective measures to prevent entry into and support exit from poverty; to deliver refreshed funding approaches in order to explore opportunities to achieve greater value from public money for existing programmes in my Department, with a view to releasing capacity to fund new anti-poverty measures; to put in place targets and indicators that are within our ability to deliver and that will measure progress and keep us accountable; and to deliver and develop a costed, detailed delivery plan in due course.

We share an ambition to alleviate poverty in our society and an understanding of the complexity of the challenge, which is increased by our highly constrained funding environment. I genuinely believe that this is among the most important work that we can do, but we will succeed only by working in partnership. To that end, I had a meeting with the Chair of the Communities Committee to set out the way forward and to make him an offer to have genuine engagement, which I have now extended to other parties in the House. I am happy to engage. I want to hear ideas and to put in place something that is affordable, can be delivered, is costed and can make a real change to people's lives. I am committed to doing that, and I look forward to working with others in the Chamber and outside it in the interests of people across our communities who require our focus and hard work on the issue the most.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Business Committee is meeting now. I therefore propose, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting until 2.00 pm. The debate will continue at 2.45 pm, after Question Time, when Cathy Mason will be called to make a winding-up speech on the motion.

Mr Speaker: Question 12 has been withdrawn.

Mrs O'Neill (The First Minister): The Executive Office's Urban Villages initiative has had a transformative impact in local communities in Belfast and Derry. To date, a total of £83 million has been invested in Urban Villages areas. Of that, £65·4 million has been invested in the capital programme, with 61 schemes completed, and £17·6 million in revenue funding has been awarded to help build community capacity. That work has provided much-needed physical regeneration, creating thriving places and safer communities and making a real, positive difference to people's lives.

To build on that success, we are determined that the benefits of the scheme reach even more communities. Our efforts are focused on identifying areas that would gain most from the support and investment that is offered through the Urban Villages initiative. We are working to finalise the details of phase 2 of the programme. Once it is complete, Members will receive a comprehensive update to outline the next steps and opportunities that it will present.

Mr Kingston: I thank the First Minister for the update that the Department is actively looking towards a phase 2 of the Urban Villages initiative. It has made a great difference in areas of North Belfast, which Phillip Brett and I represent. We look forward to further information about phase 2.

Can the First Minister confirm whether the Department remains committed to ensuring that phase 1 projects that are outstanding — I am thinking, in particular, of the new Westland and Sunningdale community centres — will be delivered?

Mrs O'Neill: We can all agree, having seen it at first hand, how beneficial many of those projects have been to our communities. It is something that has worked really well and can be built upon in the time ahead. You have asked about Westland, in particular, on a number of occasions. Obviously, the planning application that was submitted in April 2026 is a positive development. The project will benefit very much the group who will operate the building when it is completed. It has also received capacity-building support from Urban Villages via the Community Academy.

On the Sunningdale community centre, our officials continue to work with the community association there, to ensure that it has the proper capacity-building training and support that will allow it to get into a state of operational readiness for future potential opportunities that arise, whether that is through this programme or any others.

Ms Ní Chuilín: First Minister, I know that, recently, you were in Ardoyne for the sod cutting of the new £3·4 million purpose-built youth facility for Ardoyne Youth Enterprise. Further to your response to Brian Kingston, can you give us an update on that project and, indeed, any others?

Mrs O'Neill: Yes. It really was a pleasure to visit the Ardoyne Youth Enterprise site to see that work being developed on the Crumlin Road, where that state-of-the-art building will be an addition for the local community as part of our Urban Villages work. That hub will really transform the physical landscape, and it will also support creative and digital learning training, youth development opportunities, counselling and capacity building — so many really positive initiatives.

Since 2018, we have invested a total of £35 million in 18 capital projects through Urban Villages, including driving regeneration and community development, whether that is in Ardoyne or Ballysillan. You have only to look at how successful the programme has been and how it has created a real environment for collaborative working that allows projects to work across different communities and villages. That is really important. I want us to see and build upon what has been achieved thus far. I look forward to the new phase of the programme so that we can support even more community development and capacity building in our communities.

Ms Bradshaw: Can you update the House on the plans to redevelop the former school of music in Donegall Pass? I want to pick up on a phrase that you used: "capacity building". Is any financial support going to the programme sponsors to ensure that they get the right mix in that building?

Mrs O'Neill: I do not have the detail in front of me of where the school of music redevelopment currently sits. However, I know that a lot of good work was done there to try to progress that even further, so I will not misspeak on exactly where we are. I will ensure that you get that information.

As for capacity-building, it is really important that we help communities to access funding, whether that is through this programme or any other programme that we have out there. The work that I referred to across projects, whether in Ardoyne or anywhere else across north Belfast, has been very much about lifting the capacity. We should build on that in the new programme, because we have to equip communities with opportunities to reach for any funding pots that become available to them.

Mr McNulty: First Minister, how will local communities be directly involved in designing any future Urban Villages initiatives, rather than their simply being consulted after decisions have already been made about them without them?

Mrs O'Neill: That is not even the case. Those projects come from the communities organically. The programme is designed in such a way that we work with communities, identify their needs and deliver on those needs. You can see that through some of the examples that I have cited. The scale and the breadth of all the projects has been powerful, as has the partnership working and communities coming together to, as I said, identify their needs and our being able to respond. I look forward to the next stage of the programme creating and delivering better outcomes for communities. It is a really successful programme that we can commend as a method of supporting communities.

Mrs O'Neill: The murder of Katie Simpson was a profound tragedy, and our thoughts are very much with her family, who continue to bear the impact of that loss.

The review underscores the work that all of us — as the Executive, as wider society and as individuals — are required to do collectively to end violence against women and girls (EVAWG). The Katie Simpson review provides an important and sobering assessment of systemic failures in the identification and management of risk, particularly in relation to coercive control and multi-agency working. Its findings reinforce the need for a whole-system, preventative approach to tackling violence against women and girls.

While the review was commissioned by the Justice Minister and sits within the remit of the Department of Justice, the conclusions very much align with the outcomes of our ending violence against women and girls strategic framework. Indeed, some of the issues identified, including the need for information-sharing and improved understanding of coercive control, are areas that we are progressing through its second delivery plan. Those include the forthcoming campaign on coercive control, developed in partnership with the Ulster University and a range of cross-sector stakeholders including, vitally, women with lived experience. That campaign will be launched in the coming weeks. Work is also ongoing to develop arrangements to support related training for front-line professionals. The Executive Office will continue to work closely with the Department of Justice and other partners to consider the review’s recommendations and to ensure that, where appropriate, learning is reflected in delivery of the EVAWG programme.

Mrs Dillon: I thank the First Minister for her answer, particularly her reference to the need for training, because that is very important. Does the First Minister agree that, whilst the Katie Simpson review identified institutional misogyny in the PSNI, that institutional misogyny goes much wider in the justice system? Training is really important, because I can guarantee that, if one man did to another man in the street what men are doing to women in their homes every day of the week, they would get a prison sentence. The questions that those women are asked, the victim-blaming and the absolutely ridiculous sentences that follow need to be addressed. We need to see our judiciary really take that on.

Mrs O'Neill: Nobody in the Chamber would disagree with that. We need to have a justice system that responds to women, particularly in those times of crisis. The review highlights the depth and extent of the work that needs to be done across all the different avenues, and that it needs to be undertaken at pace. I, therefore, welcome the fact that there is an action plan.

A sad thing about the report — much has been said about this over past weeks — is that you would be hard-pushed to find a woman who was surprised to hear that there is institutionalised misogyny across a raft of the public sector, including the PSNI. Jonathan Creswell was a known abuser, and he was known to the criminal justice system. It is the responsibility of all of us to work collectively so that serious lessons are learned in both the PSNI — we raised that directly with the Chief Constable — and the wider justice system. We must have a system that protects women and girls, properly sanctions perpetrators and commands the confidence of wider society. We want to ensure that no other family goes through what Katie's family have gone through. If we are going to be successful in ending violence against women and girls, that starts with challenging the attitudes, cultures and prejudices that exist that enable it to happen in our society.

Mrs Cameron: As the First Minister will be aware, women and girls in rural communities can be at risk due to isolation and lack of access to services and support. What are the Executive doing to ensure that women and girls living in rural areas are included in the EVAWG strategy?

Mrs O'Neill: Again, it comes back to the underlying point that, if we are going to be successful, we have to ensure that everybody is included in the strategy, particularly women in rural areas. In partnership with the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, we commissioned a community-led review of rural women and girls that launched on 15 October for International Day of Rural Women. The review is being led by the Rural Community Network and the Northern Ireland Rural Women's Network. The aim is to understand the experiences, the barriers and the service provision for rural women and to develop practical, rural-sensitive recommendations to help shape and improve future policy and practice. That will be a pivotal part of the work that we will do. The publication date for the final report will be agreed in consultation with the organisations doing the research, and I hope that it will be very soon.

Mrs O'Neill: While we welcome the prospect of a multi-year Budget, current funding simply does not match the scale of the challenges facing our public services. We wrote to the Prime Minister on 17 April outlining the scale of the financial pressures and seeking further engagement. The Secretary of State responded on 28 April on the Prime Minister’s behalf, reaffirming their view that sufficient funding is there, which we obviously do not agree with. We invited the Secretary of State to meet to discuss the issues and challenges in agreeing a 2026-2030 Budget, but that meeting has not yet taken place. The Finance Minister, however, continues to engage with Treasury to underline the scale of the Executive’s financial challenges and to seek additional support to help stabilise public finances and to support our local economy. The Executive have consistently highlighted the fact that the current funding does not reflect the pressures on our public services, as also noted by the Fiscal Council, and that Wales and Scotland receive comparatively higher funding relative to need.

In the absence of an agreed Budget, our Departments are operating within contingency planning envelopes set by the Department of Finance, constraining decisions and increasing financial and delivery risks. We remain committed to protecting front-line services, prioritising our Programme for Government commitments and restoring financial stability, while pressing for a fair and sustainable funding settlement. The Executive recognise that ongoing cost-of-living pressures are real and that people are feeling it really tight right now. We have taken action to support our households, including with energy costs, and will continue to consider those in future spending plans.

Mr McGuigan: First Minister, given how you have responded, do you believe that the British Government have failed in their responsibility to adequately fund the Executive to protect our public services, support working families and help local businesses? Further to that, can you outline exactly what more, you believe, Westminster should do?

Mrs O'Neill: The people here have been failed. That is why we collectively make the case for a proper and adequate funding model. We are asking for fairness. The people here pay their taxes, and they are entitled to good public services. The Fiscal Council backs up our assertion that, comparatively speaking with regard to Scotland and Wales, we do not get our fair share. Therefore, we continue to make that case.

In the times that we live in, people really struggle with the cost of living. They are worried about rising food prices, soaring home energy bills and increased housing costs — everything that people are getting really tight on right now. They know that the levers for raising funds sit very much with Westminster, and I believe that people here are being failed by Westminster again and again. It shows a complete disregard for us that, thus far, Keir Starmer has chosen not to meet me and the deputy First Minister, but we make that case again today. We need fairness for the people whom we represent. We need investment in public services and support through the cost-of-living crisis, and we will not give up until we get what we need for people here.

Mr O'Toole: First Minister, I am slightly in shock that we are relying on Keir Starmer, a man whose Government are in shambles and a man who does not know whether he will be in the job by the summer, to guarantee public services for the people of Northern Ireland. I agree with you and your colleagues that we want as much money as possible and a better financial settlement, but here is the problem: if the Executive do not agree a Budget, you, in addition to the British Government settlement, will impose an austerity cut on the public of the North. We will be able to spend only a percentage of last year's Budget. That will be a cut created by the Executive. Do you accept that? When will a Budget be agreed?

Mrs O'Neill: As I said, we are determined to get to a point where we have a multi-year Budget. That is exactly where we all need to get to, and I want us to get there. However, I am not shocked. The Member asserts that we should just accept our lot and move on: I will not do that. I have far more ambition for the people here. We should not be shocked by the mess that is happening in Westminster. We should not be shocked that, at every turn, they let the people here down. We should not be shocked that it was a Westminster scenario that brought us Brexit and austerity and that crashed the economy. We should not be shocked by any of that.

People here are alert to where the powers lie, particularly when it comes to helping people through the cost-of-living crisis and having a meaningful package in place. We have played and will continue to play our part. We will continue to have people's backs, and we will continue to do whatever we can to get people through this and to get to the stage where we have a Budget. As things stand, however, the Budget does not cut it; it is not good enough for the people here. My ambition is, obviously, much larger than the Member's.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and all their Executive colleagues for continuing to make the case for fair funding for Northern Ireland. Does the First Minister agree that there are simple things that the UK Government could do to help, including making changes to borrowing so that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive can start to build homes? What discussions has she and the deputy First Minister had with the Prime Minister or Treasury about that?

Mrs O'Neill: I assure the Member that that is one of the issues that we have raised continually from day 1, and we will continue to do so. Giving us that flexibility would allow us to reach and even exceed our housebuilding target. We have raised the matter directly, and I know that all parties have probably raised it with the Secretary of State and the British Treasury. It has been raised at Finance Minister level, as well as directly with the Prime Minister, when the deputy First Minister and I made that case.

Thus far, the Treasury has accepted that it will consider it as part of the final fiscal framework, but we do not want to wait until that juncture; we want it now. We think that, if we had that power now, we would be able to move forward with more housebuilding. That adds to the long line of frustrations with the Treasury, which basically is turning a blind eye to what people here need. We will have to keep fighting that case, and I assure the Member that the deputy First Minister and I, the Finance Minister and the housing Minister will continue to raise the matter at every turn.

Mrs O'Neill: With your permission, Mr Speaker, junior Minister Reilly will answer the question.

Ms Reilly (Junior Minister, The Executive Office): Since 2019, the Communities in Transition (CIT) project has been delivering targeted support in West Belfast through a range of interventions to help increase community resilience to paramilitarism and organised crime. With £5·5 million in investment to date, CIT has supported the community to tackle the real, hard-hitting issues caused by organised crime. That includes helping people affected by poor mental health and addiction; raising awareness of exploitation; working with young people to raise their aspirations and hope for the future; and addressing the impact of paramilitarism on the physical environment. Funding has also supported the transition of ex-prisoners through advocacy, access to employment and education and restorative community practices.

Over the past year, CIT activity delivered by our delivery partners Extern, Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) Ireland and the Upper Springfield Development Trust in West Belfast has shown real progress through strong partnership working with local residents, the PSNI, the Housing Executive and other statutory agencies. During that period, approximately 1,500 people have engaged in CIT activities, including one-to-one and group interventions, community forums and other targeted activities. The evidence from the programme is now showing a real change in attitudes. There has been a 70% increase in people in the community feeling that they can influence decisions in their area and have their voices heard.

Mr Sheehan: Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire shóisearach as ucht a freagra.

I acknowledge the work of the Communities in Transition delivery partners alongside the energetic and vibrant community groups, as well as Féile, which work 365 days a year to build a West Belfast that is inclusive, welcoming, confident and safe. Does the Minister agree that building strong and resilient communities is the key to tackling criminality?

Ms Reilly: Go raibh maith agat as an cheist sin.

I absolutely agree. I am of the strong view that, in order to tackle criminality and create safer neighbourhoods, we have to build stronger, more resilient and inclusive communities. There are many vibrant community organisations across West Belfast from Twinbrook to the Shankill. A few that come to mind are St Comgall's, Black Mountain Shared Space and the Shankill Women's Centre. We also have our youth groups, sporting organisations, interface and cultural initiatives and local leaders who work tirelessly every day of the year to support people, particularly young people, by providing positive opportunities and pathways. Initiatives that have been delivered through CIT alongside the incredible work of Féile an Phobail and many other grassroots organisations build confidence, strengthen community relationships and create a sense of pride and belonging in our communities.

Tackling criminality is not just about enforcement; it also has to be about prevention. It is about early intervention and making sure that people, particularly young people, have access to opportunities and support and have hope for the future. That is why partnership working between Departments, statutory agencies and the community and voluntary sector is so important. When communities are empowered, connected and properly supported, they are so much better and safer for everyone.

Mr Bradley: Will the Minister update the Assembly on future funding for the Communities in Transition programme, including any plans to expand support to new areas?

Ms Reilly: I thank the Member for that question. Discussions are taking place on funding for CIT, which will be linked to the next stage of planning discussions for the Executive programme on paramilitarism and organised crime (EPPOC). Discussions are ongoing at official level on a future programme. That will have to go to the Executive for approval, but I will, of course, update the Assembly on it at the appropriate time.

Ms Egan: Junior Minister, my constituency of North Down has two areas in the Communities in Transition programme. What assessment has your Department made of the effectiveness of the programme in eradicating paramilitarism in the target areas?

Ms Reilly: I thank the Member for her question. It is fair and true to say that there has been important progress to date, particularly in CIT. It has evolved. As I mentioned, the programme is moving from the thematic approach to focus more on the real issues that affect people in our communities every day. They include growing challenges around mental health; addiction; exploitation, including criminal, sexual and financial exploitation, and its impact on our young people; and the continuing influence of paramilitarism on the physical and social landscape of our communities.

We have to adapt our response to the legacy and ongoing impact of the conflict. For me, that means recognising and addressing the real issues of mental health, addiction and intergenerational trauma that continue to affect families and communities across the North. Do we still have more to do? Absolutely, but we are travelling along the path. The CIT programme has shown that, with the right partnerships and the right community-led approaches, we can make progress.

Mr McGrath: To follow up on the previous question, in the past seven years, the same eight areas have received Communities in Transition funding. The work is, of course, welcome, but at what point will communities have transitioned?

Ms Reilly: I thank the Member for his question. CIT came about in 2016, and the Executive Office has taken a refreshed approach. The Member is right to say that communities have changed greatly in recent years, particularly in the 28 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Many people have worked extremely hard to move forward, build safer areas, create opportunities for young people and give families hope for a better future. There is real strength and resilience in our communities, and that progress should never be underestimated. That is why we need to keep investing in programmes such as CIT. We have to keep working directly with communities, local leaders and grassroots organisations, and we have to support them. We have to give hope, open up opportunities and support people to realise their potential so that they can have a chance to thrive.

Mr Gaston: As we have heard, since the creation of the Communities in Transition programme in 2016, the same eight areas have received approximately £26 million between them. Time after time, TEO officials have been unable to tell me, and, junior Minister, you did not answer Mr McGrath, so can you tell me when a community in transition becomes transitioned? When will we see the money and the focus move away from those eight areas to other areas that need an injection of money and regeneration investment?

Ms Reilly: As I said, the CIT programme came about in 2016. A refreshed approach was taken on the basis of the evidence. The same eight areas came up when the refresh was done. I go back to the point that a real difference has been made, particularly in areas that have faced social and economic challenges as well as the ongoing impact of paramilitarism.

We remain fully committed to working with communities and local organisations to build on the progress that has been made in order to make sure that, as I have said, people continue to get the support and opportunities that they deserve.

Mrs O'Neill: The Executive remain committed to the delivery of the Programme for Government (PFG). We have made significant progress across a range of key priorities. Substantial investment has supported thousands of people to upskill and reskill. Hundreds of thousands of additional patients have been treated, thus reducing our health waiting lists. Funding for early learning and childcare has resulted in the expansion of preschool provision, with over 50% of all funded placed now being full-time. Investment in the childcare subsidy scheme has created millions of pounds of savings for families. Some £27·5 million of transformation funding was secured to provide better support for children and young people with special educational needs. Local and regional initiatives to tackle violence against women and girls have been boosted by £5 million from the change fund. Supported by £20·5 million of transformation funding, work is under way to reduce delays in the justice system. Steady progress is being made on the Lough Neagh action plan. A new Office of AI and Digital has been established to drive innovation. Improvements to waste water infrastructure continue to support housing development.

Tomorrow, we will publish the PFG annual report for 2025-26, which sets out in detail the progress that has been made against all our commitments in the Programme for Government. The report will demonstrate the tangible progress that has been made through collective Executive action and cross-departmental working, despite the very challenging financial context in which we find ourselves operating. That work is delivering real benefits for people, families and communities here.

Ms Flynn: I thank the First Minister for her response. Earlier today, the Minister of Finance, John O'Dowd, announced £103 million for a second tranche of transformation projects for healthcare, special educational needs, justice and infrastructure. Does the First Minister agree that that is not only welcome investment in public services to transform them but clear evidence of Executive delivery and of what can be achieved when the Executive are properly resourced to deliver for workers and families?

Mrs O'Neill: I agree. The second phase of the transformation fund, which the Finance Minister launched today, is another important step towards improving public services and delivering reforms. We have said that we need to come at the issue from a number of different avenues. We need proper, fair funding for our citizens here. We want to do the work on transformation, but we need to have upfront investment in order to do so. The £103 million announced for the next phase of that work has come from Executive funding, National Lottery funding and the Shared Island Fund and will deliver real, meaningful and positive change in a number of critical areas, because we are talking about strengthening healthcare provision, providing earlier support for families and children, improving employability and well-being services, providing support for our farmers and agri-food sector and modernising how government delivers services. The projects are a key component of the long-term reform that the Executive are focused on to ensure that our public services work in a way that is meaningful and makes a difference to people's lives. As the Member will know, the projects in the second phases extend across a number of key services. That underscores the work that the Executive are committed to doing collectively on the reform agenda.

Mr Brett: Key Programme for Government targets have not been met as a result of climate change legislation that you, as First Minister, supported. On Saturday, I welcomed your apparent forthcoming U-turn on climate change targets to try to deliver the A5 and other infrastructure projects. Do you now regret voting for targets that you were warned would have detrimental impacts for Northern Ireland?

Mrs O'Neill: Of course, it will not be lost on people that it was your Minister who introduced the climate change legislation, but —

Mr Brett: You voted for the amendments to it.

A Member: Running way.

Mr Speaker: Order, Members.

Mrs O'Neill: — let us ignore the reality. Let us ignore the facts.

I have said from day 1 that I want to see the A5 built. It is a priority for all of us in the Executive. Too many lives have been lost on that stretch of road. The project has, however, been marred by legal challenge after legal challenge, going back well over a decade. We know that there is a legal challenge currently under way.

There is nothing new in what I have said. I said, as did the Minister for Infrastructure, that we will leave no stone unturned in order to ensure that the A5 gets built. Of course, it is not just the A5 that is affected. The same is being felt across this island and across these islands. We therefore need to come at the project in a constructive way, instead of talking nonsense and ignoring the point about who introduced the legislation in the first place.

Ms Hunter: First Minister, the well-being dashboard shows that life satisfaction among our young people is continuing to worsen. Mental health is a huge issue, as is a lack of opportunities and overall happiness. If that dashboard is meant to drive the Programme for Government, what action is it triggering, and how is it used?

Mrs O'Neill: We will be saying a lot more about that tomorrow because we said that the dashboard would be one way in which people can see how lives are being improved. Tomorrow, when we launch our Programme for Government plan, we will talk about the key achievements, the indicators that show where things have stayed the same, where, in some cases, they have even got worse and where they have improved. We have to have a holistic approach to those things. It is only one measure, of course, of the areas that we are focused on. We will be launching our annual report tomorrow, and we will be able to say an awful lot more about that then.

Mr Speaker: We move to topical questions.

Mrs O'Neill: Yes. Who in their right mind would not agree? I say no to racism, sectarianism and every form of discrimination in our society regardless of whose mouth it comes out of.

Mr O'Toole: The reason I ask, First Minister, is that, when those specific remarks were put to your party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, she said:

She refused, at that point, to condemn the words of Gerry Hutch. I do not want to get into political commentary on every remark that is made, but I see that some of your Members are laughing at this. This is extremely serious. Racism has to be stood against in this society, and, all too often, people see parties playing it both ways when it suits them. Do you agree that it is really important that your party, all over this island, is absolutely four-square and clear about these issues?

Mrs O'Neill: I have said it in the House, and I said it in answer to your original question: I abhor racism, and I say no to racism, sectarianism and every form of discrimination in our community. Mary Lou McDonald is a political leader, not a commentator, so I think that she can stand over her own expression. However, when it comes to creating an inclusive and welcoming society for everybody, we all have work to do. We all have work to do to ensure that our legislation is up to date, and we are continuing to work on bringing in up-to-date racial equality legislation. It is important that we ensure that everybody in our community feels that they are part of and live in a place that is welcoming. I am certainly determined to achieve that, and I have never shied away from that and never will.

Mrs O'Neill: Thank you for that. You are right. The Economy Minister, Caoimhe Archibald, is bringing forward a new package of workers' rights, which will be the most significant in a generation. At a time when the cost of living is continuing to have an impact on workers and families here, the 'good jobs' Bill is a significant initiative through which we can improve workers' rights and conditions across society. I listened earlier to some of the debate on an anti-poverty strategy and heard that work must pay and that people need to be protected in their employment. That Bill ticks those boxes.

At a time of increased instability in employment and when people need stability, job security and their rights protected, workers on zero-hours contracts will have the option to move on to a fixed-hours contract. Tips, gratuities and service charges will be passed on in full to the workers. Neonatal care leave and pay will be fully implemented. There will be a new entitlement to unpaid carer's leave. The Bill is also about fathers being entitled to paternity leave from day 1 of a new job and paternity leave being used in a more flexible way. There will be redundancy protection for pregnant employees and those returning from family-related leave will also have their rights strengthened.

Our economy can be very much strengthened by supporting workers in these times, and the strength of our economy is based around our workers. It is based around their talent and their skills, and that is what the 'good jobs' Bill is about. It is about supporting them, and I hope that we get that Bill published and get it into the Committee and into the Chamber for full-on debate. If we want to help people through the cost-of-living crisis, let us protect their rights.

Mrs Mason: I thank the First Minister for her answer. I, too, was really glad to hear the DUP recognise in an earlier debate that employment sustainability is a good first step in tackling poverty. The First Minister said that the 'good jobs' Bill will be the most significant legislation in a generation. Does the First Minister agree with me, therefore, that it is critical that that much-anticipated Bill be brought before the Assembly without further delay?

Mrs O'Neill: Yes, I agree. I appeal to all parties to get behind the Bill and move it to the next stage so that we can have a fulsome debate on what it means for workers, and so that people can understand exactly what it means for them as individual workers. I genuinely believe that those laws will be transformative for wider society. I also believe that there is a demand in wider society for the legislation to be brought forward. As I said, at a time when people are struggling just to get by day-to-day, there has, arguably, never been greater need for that modernising legislation. The Executive will have the opportunity in a few days' time to agree that the 'good jobs' Bill should come to the Floor of the Assembly. We need to move to the next stage. There is no reason for any more delays. Let us get it into the Assembly and the Committee for the due diligence and scrutiny. That legislation will be so transformative for workers that I really want to see it coming forward.

Mrs O'Neill: I answered that question before in the House. That is entirely a commercial matter for Cantor Fitzgerald.

Mr K Buchanan: Thank you for that non-answer, First Minister. Over the weekend, we watched, in the Dublin Central and Galway West by-elections, the catastrophic failure of your party and its pipe dream down there. Will you now bring your focus back to the six counties of Northern Ireland and let Mary Lou go ahead with whatever she is doing down there, or maybe you are biting at her ankles for her job?

Mrs O'Neill: I am very glad that you are following national politics. Well done.

Mrs O'Neill: The Bill will have tremendous benefits to all workers, as I said to Cathy, but there are measures in it that will really benefit women in particular. I commend our colleague Caoimhe Archibald, the Economy Minister, for already introducing paid miscarriage leave. People have stopped me on the street to welcome that because it means so much to them. Things like that can make a huge difference to people's lives, and people will benefit further from the 'good jobs' Bill in a number of practical ways.

As you know, many women struggle with the work-life balance and to manage everything. The Bill will do a number of things, including creating more flexible conditions for workers. That will really help people to strike a work-life balance. That can be only good for the economy. It will encourage more women back into the workforce as they juggle to manage both things at once. At the moment, workers have to wait 26 weeks before they can request flexible working arrangements. The Bill will allow people to request flexible working from day 1 of their employment. That is a huge step forward for women in the workplace and for all workers. Many women manage work while caring for a loved one. The Bill will introduce five days of unpaid carer's leave. We hope to be able to get to a position when that will be paid carer's leave. The Bill will introduce paid neonatal care leave. Parents whose newborn requires medical care can then focus on caring for their new wee baby and not have to worry about the financial stress of being out of pocket in their wages. The Bill will also extend redundancy protections for pregnant employees and those returning from family leave.

Just look at that picture for women in the workforce alone: it is a much better and more attractive picture. The Bill will create more flexibility, particularly for women in the workplace

Ms Ní Chuilín: Go raibh maith agat,

First Minister, for that response. Stronger workers' rights are essential.

You mentioned some of the issues that are important: trade union representation, the banning of zero-hours contracts and employees being able to have their tips and service charges. Anyone who cannot get behind these proposals needs to be clear — concerns for some, and hiding behind the industry for others. If this is not supported, it will ensure that women's rights and other workers' rights in the workforce are not respected or, indeed, protected. Does the First Minister agree that it is essential to introduce the 'good jobs' Bill at the earliest opportunity?

Mrs O'Neill: Yes. I agree with what you said, because many women do jobs that rely on tips, and the Bill will ensure that workers receive their tips in full. It is unbelievable that, in this day and age, that does not happen, but that is something that we can change. It can make a real, positive difference to a worker's life to go home at the end of their shift with their tips. Many women do temporary work, so they will benefit from the right to move from a zero-hours contract to a banded-hours contract. That could be a game changer for a woman who is deciding to come back into the workforce or to remain in the workforce. We know that a lot of women are forced to leave work because of the challenges of managing everything, as I said, and their work-life balance. Trade union access to workplaces to talk to potential members can benefit women, because trade unions play a critical role in raising people's awareness of their rights and entitlements: they can stand up for a woman in the workforce. I should add that the Minister for Communities has the option of using the Bill as a vehicle to take forward gender pay gap reporting and action plans. I hope that that option is taken up; I know that Caoimhe Archibald has offered it.

There are huge opportunities for us to improve people's lives, and I hope that we can get the legislation over the line as quickly as possible.

Mrs O'Neill: I do. Trade unions play an enormously important part in a modern and progressive economy. We have seen how the decline in trade union membership has coincided with the growth of inequality and the rise of low-paid and insecure work, so we want to get to a place where trade unions and employers work together. It is not either/or. We can ensure that we have successful businesses — we want to create an environment where businesses flourish — and that workers get their share of that growing prosperity.

The 'good jobs' Bill will make it easier for trade unions to operate and to recruit members. It introduces electronic balloting and gives recognised trade unions the right to access workplaces so that they can speak to existing and potential members. All that will be underpinned by a statutory code of conduct that will require trade unions to act reasonably, constructively and in good faith. Of course, whether people want to join a union is ultimately up to them, but, under this Bill, more people will be aware of the benefits of joining a trade union to their access to support and advice, and they will be able to make more informed decisions for themselves.

Ms Ferguson: I thank the First Minister for her answer. Does she believe that a phased approach to the trade union right of access will help ensure that it leads to more constructive relationships between workers and employers?

Mrs O'Neill: Yes. It is important for the Bill to move to the next stage so that people can see for themselves what is in the text, what will come in and when it will come in. For example, as I said, the right of access for trade unions will be underpinned by a statutory code. That will very much be developed in a co-designed way. It will set out the rights and responsibilities of the trade union and of the employer. It will be co-designed with employer representatives, trade unions and the Labour Relations Agency. The intention is that the code will come into effect for companies with more than 50 employees in 2028, so there is a run-in time for the first element. It will then apply to companies with more than 21 employees the following year before opening to all companies the year after that. The lead-in time will allow businesses to plan and to build relationships with the trade unions and the Labour Relations Agency, which is really important. That gives us plenty of time to get the rules right and to ensure a smooth transition to where we want to be, which is a place where trade unions and employers work together to ensure that we have successful businesses and that workers get their fair share of that growing prosperity.

Ms Forsythe: In response to an earlier question, the First Minister implied that it was the DUP Minister who imposed severe climate targets on Northern Ireland when that was not the case. The Minister tabled legislation and, like the UK Climate Change Committee, warned against the targets. As a party, we warned about what would happen to our agriculture and our infrastructure.

Mrs O'Neill: The factual position is still that it was the Member's Minister who brought forward the legislation. There is no disputing that fact.

There is a difference between the approach of those of us who want to be pragmatic and reasonable and do our best to protect our environment while allowing investment in our public infrastructure — I think that we can do both those things at one time — and the approach of the Member's party. It is a very different position.

Mr Speaker: That concludes questions to the Executive Office.

Mr Speaker: Mrs Mason, you have up to 10 minutes to make a winding-up speech.

Mrs Mason (The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Communities): Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.

I thank the Chairperson for moving the motion and Members from across the House for their contributions. I thank the Clerk and her team for their extensive work on this very important report.

The motion asks that the Assembly note the Committee's 'Report on Engagement with Local Government on the draft Anti-Poverty Strategy' and calls on the Minister for Communities and the Executive to implement the recommendations in the report. In many ways, today's debate has focused on a practical question: how do we ensure that the final strategy is capable of making a real difference in people's lives? That means moving beyond a document that just sets out ambition and towards a framework that supports delivery in our communities. It also means recognising that local government has knowledge. It has real experience that must be built into the strategy from the outset.

A number of contributions from Members across the House were really important. I will raise a few of them. Pam Cameron mentioned that councils already do so much work through social supermarkets and community transport and have so many local insights, which is important. She also mentioned sustainable employment and the fact that having good jobs is a good starting place. I hope that that is an indication that the DUP will put its money where its mouth is and support Minister Archibald's 'good jobs' Bill, which, clearly, could be a really good first step in trying to tackle poverty.

Sian Mulholland mentioned councils being a key delivery partner. She mentioned her council area of Causeway Coast and Glens, where, I think, 23% of people live in poverty. That shows why it is so important that we recognise the role of local government. All the councils have so many different issues and so much detailed information on hand, which is really important.

Robbie Butler mentioned that councils deal with poverty every day. He mentioned a key issue: parents who are already in the phase of worrying about the summer coming up, the return to school and issues with school uniform costs. We had hoped to see strong legislation on that. It remains to be seen what impact that will have.

Mark Durkan mentioned councils being leaders in the fightback against poverty. He raised a really good point: when the Committee heard evidence from councils, those councils expressed real confusion as to why they had not been central to the draft strategy.

Maolíosa McHugh did something that we failed to do: he thanked councils for the work that they do and urged the Minister to act on that.

Maurice Bradley said that the current draft strategy lacked ambition and clarity. That is what we heard that day. He said that the focus needs to move away from short-term funding measures to more sustainable measures and to have less of the sticking-plaster approach of temporary measures.

Gerry Carroll raised the important issue that poverty levels are skyrocketing, and it has doubled in his area. I raised that with the Communities Minister, and he said that the trend is showing a downward trajectory, but that is not what we hear from the experts, and Gerry Carroll mentioned that as well.

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): I thank the Member for giving way. We are not complacent about poverty levels, but it is worth noting that there has been a statistically significant decrease in child poverty from 21% to 16%. It is still too high, but it shows some of the progress that has been made. It is a much better figure than that for other parts of the UK, but there is much more still to do.

Mrs Mason: I appreciate the figures that the Minister has mentioned, but we need to explore them further because there was a concern that the criteria had changed when they were being calculated. I appreciate the figures, but it is something that we need to look at.

It came through clearly that poverty is not experienced in neat, departmental categories. The pressures overlap for families and individuals: housing, income, transport, childcare, employment, health and debt can all interact, and that is why a narrow or fragmented response will not be enough. The anti-poverty strategy must be much more than a Department for Communities document; it must be cross-cutting, supported by local delivery and informed by lived experience. The Minister mentioned that the British Government had a role, and I was glad to hear that, because delivery would be much easier if we were funded to need.

I thank the Minister for his response to the debate, and there are issues that I want to point out. Language is important, and it goes back to something the Minister said about those who are economically inactive. Some people are in that situation by choice because of caring responsibilities, and it is important for us to be careful about the language that we use. I am sure that those who are caring for a sick child, sick parent or sick partner do not think it is a choice; it is the lack of choice. They do not want to sacrifice their career to take up those caring responsibilities, but they have no choice in the matter because they are the only person who can provide the care.

I am also slightly disappointed that we went down a rabbit hole about fraud and error, rather than following the essence of the motion and the report that we brought forward today. We have to look at everything in the round, but the motion was about the involvement of local government in the anti-poverty strategy.

Mr Lyons: I appreciate the Member's generosity in giving way. The reason why those matters are important and pertinent to today’s debate is that, if we want to put the interventions in place through local government and the Department, we need the funding. Tackling fraud and moving people into work are the ways we can do that because it provides the funding. It is important, pertinent and worth discussing.

Mrs Mason: I am glad to hear the Minister mention getting people back into work, and good jobs are central to that. I am also glad that the Minister has recognised the need to take views on board and that the next draft of the strategy will be substantially different, and we look forward to seeing that. I have no doubt that the Committee will want to reflect carefully on the Minister's remarks, and I urge him to view the report as a practical contribution to strengthening the strategy before it is finalised. The Committee does not want to add unnecessary complexity; in fact, much of the report is about avoiding duplication and missed opportunities.

An important theme of today's debate is the need to move beyond a crisis response, and immediate support will always matter. For a household with no heating oil, a fuel payment can be essential; for a parent who cannot afford a school uniform, practical help can reduce the pressure; and, for someone facing debt or benefit issues, advice services can prevent a bad situation from getting worse. I have no doubt that all our constituency offices will deal with an increase in cases, such as parents skipping meals so their children do not have to and workers taking on extra shifts just to stay afloat. We have heard that they all feel let down. They feel abandoned by the lack of action on an anti-poverty strategy and that they have been left to fend for themselves again. Interventions can prevent serious harm, and the Committee recognises the value of the councils, community organisations, advice workers and volunteers who deliver those services. If the system responds only when it is at the point of crisis, however, we will always be chasing the problem rather than reducing it.

The final strategy must also deal with the reasons that people fall into poverty and the reasons that they cannot get out of it. That requires paying serious attention to housing, childcare, low-paid and insecure work, transport, rural isolation, health inequalities and access to advice.

The report comes at an important moment, because the anti-poverty strategy is still in draft form. An opportunity has been created to strengthen the strategy before it is finalised. The test will not simply be whether the final strategy says the right things but whether it changes how government and public services work together. Will support become easier to access? Will councils and partners be able to target help more effectively? Will duplication be reduced? Will people be reached before the crisis deepens? Will communities see evidence that government is joined up? Those are the practical tests by which the strategy will be judged.

In closing, I thank Members for their contributions and the Minister for his response. The Committee's report reflects evidence from all 11 councils. It is a serious piece of work over which the Committee took time. It recognises the vital place and voice of local government in tackling poverty across the North.

Mr Blair: I beg to move

Mr Speaker: In accordance with convention, the Business Committee has not allocated any time limit to the debate.

Mr Blair: I am grateful for the opportunity to open the Second Stage debate on my Hunting with Dogs Bill. As Members will be aware, the purpose of the Bill is to end the practice of hunting wild mammals with dogs for sport in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom without such a ban. England and Wales banned hunting with dogs more than 20 years ago, while Scotland not only introduced a ban but strengthened its legislation through the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023, which created the most robust framework anywhere in the UK.

In Northern Ireland, however, mammals can still be chased until they are exhausted and then attacked and killed by packs of dogs for sport. Neither I nor my party, Alliance, has ever been anything other than honest about our intention to ban the cruel practice of hunting wild mammals with dogs in the circumstances in which Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK not to have already done so. The terms of the Bill have been tried and tested in the rest of the UK. The only people who need to worry about it are those who enjoy the cruelty of encouraging dogs to chase a wild mammal for the kill. I am all too aware of the use of diversions and distractions from the core issue before us, which is animal cruelty, pure and simple.

I introduced legislation on the issue in the previous mandate. This Bill reflects changes that were made after engagement, consultation and further consideration, but what has not changed is the fact at the heart of the debate, which is that hunting wild mammals with dogs is cruel and unnecessary and a ban is long overdue. The Bill also differs from previous proposals in that it has been drafted to fit within the existing legal framework established by the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985. That means that, rather than creating an entirely separate framework, the proposal is grounded in established wildlife protection law.

At its core, this is a matter of animal welfare. I am about to paint a graphic picture for Members, and I make no apology for doing so.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Blair: Not at this point.

I make no apology because, in the debate, we need to confront the facts about the cruelty involved and be truthful about what the practice of hunting with dogs truly entails. A wild mammal, such as a fox, is pursued over a long distance by a pack of dogs to the point of exhaustion. If caught, it will be torn apart by the hounds. If it manages to escape, it may still be left severely injured, traumatised and bleeding to death. In some cases, if it goes to ground, terriers are sent underground after the animal to flush it out, further prolonging its suffering.

I give way to Mr Buckley.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. The Member said that the objective is animal welfare. In keeping with that theme, can he point to any demonstrable facts and evidence that substantiate that argument when it comes to wildlife management in the countryside?

Mr Blair: I have just outlined to the Member some of the most serious animal welfare issues that have been witnessed across the countryside in every county of this region. I will go into more detail later. If Members wish to raise points in their speeches, I will respond as best I can in the time allowed.

What I have described is not humane wildlife management. It is not pest control. It is not a tradition worthy of protection. It is cruelty and nothing else.

Importantly, a fact that is often overlooked is that the cruelty does not end with the hunted animal. Dogs can suffer significant injury during hunts, particularly when an animal fights back or during terrier work underground. I have also heard repeated concerns about the welfare of hounds used by hunting groups, such as reports of malnutrition, and there is filmed evidence of healthy hounds being shot in the head when they are no longer considered useful for hunting. I have also heard that a hound is generally considered past its prime at six years old. On one hand, we are told that those dogs are beloved members of the family, but on the other, we are told that, if the Bill passes, there will somehow be no place for them and that hundreds or thousands of hounds will be euthanised. The inconsistency in those two arguments reveals the wider truth.

The Burns report, the GB parliamentary report of the inquiry into hunting with dogs, concluded that it was satisfied that:

That was one of the reasons why hunting with dogs for sport was banned in Great Britain more than two decades ago. The Bill recognises that Northern Ireland should no longer lag behind, but it also seeks to incorporate lessons from other jurisdictions to ensure that the Bill is as robust as possible from the outset. It is for that reason that the Bill also seeks to ban trail hunting and terrier work.

It will come as no surprise to Members when I say that trail hunting is used as a smokescreen for illegal hunting. I have said that here before. Scotland banned trail hunting in 2023, and the Labour Government are now working towards fulfilling their manifesto promise by holding a public consultation on banning that practice in England and Wales. Northern Ireland should not repeat the mistakes seen elsewhere by leaving obvious loopholes open from the outset.

I will give way to Mrs Cameron.

Mrs Cameron: I thank the Member for giving way. It is a very important subject, and I will support the legislation going through to the next stage for further scrutiny. Does the Member recognise the fear among people who, like me, are pet owners that, if a dog is off a lead and takes off after a squirrel or a rabbit, that could lead to prosecution? If the Member does recognise that, will he look to amend the legislation during to ensure that that is not the case?

Mr Blair: I thank the Member for the intervention and, of course, for her expressed support. The point raised is, in some ways, a technical one and, in other ways, a very general one. Of course I understand the point about dog walkers. However, it should be pointed out at this juncture that, in 20-plus years of similar legislation in other jurisdictions, there has never been a single prosecution or attempted prosecution of a dog walker, nor has there been a prosecution or attempted prosecution of someone hunting with dogs. I have a feeling that we will come back to this later, but, in direct answer to the intervention, I say this: yes, I am of course happy to look at that. However, for the Member's information, I discussed that with drafters and the Assembly legal team as we went through the process to get to this stage. The advice is general: you do not include in a Bill that which is not covered by the Bill. Therefore, as dog walking is not covered by the Bill, it will not be listed in it. However, I made efforts to have that issue included in the Bill's explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) just to provide additional information for Members, and I am more than happy to continue conversations about that.

Terrier work is another deeply troubling element of hunting. Sending dogs underground to flush out a fox or to make it easier to dig that animal out is cruel, both to the wild mammal and to the dogs involved. Reports of severe injuries to terriers and of makeshift or inadequate treatment afterwards are, unfortunately, all too common. For example, I have heard reports from veterinarians of terriers with their faces stapled together. There is no place for that type of activity in a modern society.

All that having been said, the Bill, in no way, takes an absolutist approach. It includes a number of exemptions, as laid out in clauses 6 to 10, which allow for up to two dogs to search for, stalk or flush from cover a wild mammal for the purpose of preventing damage to crops, preventing the spread of disease, protecting human health, protecting livestock and protecting biological diversity. There are also provisions for training service dogs, relieving the suffering of injured animals and retrieving dead animals. That shows that the Bill distinguishes between the organised pursuit of a wild mammal for sport and a genuinely necessary controlled activity that is undertaken for a lawful purpose.

It is important to be clear about what the Bill does not do. The Bill is aimed only at addressing the killing of wild mammals using dogs. There is no impact on hunting with guns, so long as the dogs that are involved are not actively being used to kill wild mammals. In the case of shooting ducks or pheasants, those are simply not wild mammals — they are birds — so the Bill is not relevant. It is the same when it comes to falconry. That has not been included in my Bill, because birds are an entirely separate species from dogs.

Nevertheless, I suspect that there will still be Members here — I am seeing the public commentary — who will rise and try to defend the barbaric practice. They will claim that fox hunting is necessary for pest control despite the Bill's exemptions, which I have just laid out, and the numerous other more humane methods that are available. They will claim that hunting is a way of life — a tradition, indeed. I am not seeking to ban drag hunting, which is a viable alternative. They will claim that the Bill will criminalise innocent dog walkers, ignoring the fact that I have built in provisions to prevent that, which I will come to in a moment. They may also seek to confuse the issue by drawing in forms of shooting to which the Bill simply does not apply.

Mr Kingston: I thank the Member for giving way. He will be aware that many farmers own a dog for the protection of their livestock, and of the damage that can be done to livestock if a fox or other predator gets into a chicken coop or among lambs. How will the Member ensure that a farmer is allowed to protect his livestock, including with a dog, to prevent them falling prey?

Mr Blair: I thank the Member for the intervention and the chance to explain that, apart from the fact that the farmer will often use a gun in such circumstances and is perfectly entitled to do so — that is absolutely understandable — there is an exemption in the Bill for the protection of livestock that allows for the use of up to two dogs.

I am calling out the claims that will be made about the Bill. My Bill is not an attack on the rural way of life. It still allows for the tradition of drag hunting and for appropriate wildlife management. It, in no way, impacts on other rural activities, such as shooting and angling. To suggest otherwise is simply false. As I have mentioned, one of the most common myths is that the Bill will criminalise innocent dog walkers. It will not. The Bill makes it an offence to hunt a wild mammal using a dog or to be involved in such hunting. Those are active, not passive, acts. They require planning, organisation or deliberate participation. In other words, a person must be proven to have been willingly and knowingly participating in a hunt. Someone who is walking a dog that happens to pick up a scent and run after wildlife is not, thereby, engaged in hunting in the sense that is identified by the Bill. It should be pointed out that the focus is on the conduct of the person, not on an accidental action by the dog. Most notably —.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr Blair: I will now because I am coming to a very important point, Mr Frew.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. He says that a dog walker would not be involved in hunting. However, clause 2 would insert into the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 article 23B(4), which defines "hunting a wild mammal" as follows:

That is the only Part that defines hunting. Will that not encapsulate any dog that is out searching for or pursuing a mammal?

Mr Blair: I contend that there are other references in the Bill. Look: I am pointing out that the Bill clearly defines that it is about hunting a wild mammal using a dog when the dog is used for the kill. That is the core issue. I will be happy to respond later to speeches on such points.

In relation to what I was saying there, most notably, no prosecution of an ordinary dog walker has been brought in any UK jurisdiction with hunting bans in place over a period of more than 20 years. That argument is simply another distraction. The same scaremongering has been directed towards those who hunt with guns, but if a person is out shooting with a dog, that person is shooting, not hunting with dogs. The offence in the Bill is clear: it is an offence to:

Since 2023, no person hunting with guns has been questioned or charged with an offence under the equivalent legislation in Scotland. Equally, no rough shooter has ever been prosecuted in England, Wales or Scotland.

A further claim against the Bill is that it will damage the rural economy, yet the fact that some employment or activity is traditional does not mean that it must be preserved unchanged as society moves forward. Economic activity can and does adapt to change, as is the case in every sector. Those involved in hunting can transfer to alternatives, such as drag-hunting, which preserves many of the equestrian, social and ceremonial elements without wild animals being chased and killed. In short, the economy should never be used as cover for cruelty. Significant economic ramifications were not reported in England and Wales after the ban was implemented there, nor have they been widely reported following the strengthening of the legislation in Scotland. Again, as the Burns inquiry stated:

Nor do I accept the claim that this is simply a town-versus-country issue. Many of those who oppose hunting with dogs live in rural areas. I should know that: I represent one. I regularly hear from farmers, landowners and countryside residents who do not want hunts on or near their land and object most strongly to the impact that hunts can have on their area. Concerns raised include trespass, damaged fields and hedges, livestock being disturbed and roads being blocked. I have heard anecdotal evidence of landowners being too afraid to challenge hunts accessing their land without permission. Members have received correspondence from farmers completely opposed to hunting with dogs on their land, and they will have received some of that in recent days. In a particular case that occurred at the end of last year, a pet cat was torn apart after hounds entered private land, with a hunt member reportedly attempting to dispose of the body. Sadly, those are not isolated incidents. I have also heard of hounds breaking free and running on to main roads, posing danger both to themselves and to drivers. Such matters underline that hunting with dogs is not some harmless countryside pastime but has consequences for animal welfare, rural residents and public safety.

There are also biosecurity concerns that have serious implications for the agriculture sector. Hounds can contract parasites and diseases from raw carcasses, including fallen livestock. With hunts crossing multiple farms in a single day, hounds, vehicles and followers can contribute to the spread of contamination. Farm animals may then be exposed through contaminated land, water or faeces. Those are all facts that the objectors will never raise.

Turning to biodiversity and wildlife protection, there is no evidence to suggest that organised hunting aligns with our conservation goals. Indeed, large packs of dogs, riders, vehicles and followers moving across land can disturb wildlife, damage habitats and interfere with ecosystems, including areas used by ground-nesting birds and protected species. Badger setts are already protected in law, yet there have been repeated reports of sett-blocking in areas where hunts take place in order to deny a fox a place of refuge.

If you will allow me, Mr Speaker, I turn to the consultation that I conducted on the Bill. Running for 13 weeks between October 2024 and January 2025, it received over 12,000 responses. Just like in my previous consultation, that level of response from the public was far above what is usually seen for a private Member's Bill consultation. That alone demonstrates the level of interest in the matter. As in the previous consultation, the results were undeniably in favour of a ban. A majority of respondents — 63% — said that all hunting, searching, coursing, capturing or killing of wild mammals with dogs should be banned in Northern Ireland. Among respondents who said that they lived in Northern Ireland, 72% supported a ban. In addition, 80% of Northern Ireland respondents said that ending the hunting of wild mammals with dogs was important to them, and 70% said that they fully supported the intentions of the proposed Bill. That is not just marginal support; it is significant and clearly shows constituents' strong views on hunting across Northern Ireland.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving away. Can the Member outline to the House what percentage of the Northern Ireland population his consultation constitutes? How many people from outside Northern Ireland's jurisdiction filled in the consultation?

Mr Blair: I thank the Member for the intervention. I do not have the figure on the proportion in front of me. The consultation submission is available on the Assembly website and has been for months. There was a clear influence of an increased number of responses from GB and the South of Ireland in this consultation compared with the previous one, but the core point is that, when it came to those who responded from Northern Ireland, the figure in opposition was 72·27%.

The consistency in polling was also mirrored in polling conducted by other leading animal welfare organisations, such as the USPCA and the League against Cruel Sports. Polling also shows that many people in Northern Ireland already assumed that hunting with dogs was illegal here, most likely because bans have existed elsewhere in the UK for so long. In my experience, when they discover that Northern Ireland is the outlier, horror and strong support for the ban quickly follow.

Furthermore, throughout the development of the Bill, there has been extensive engagement with organisations and stakeholders. That engagement included shooting, farming and veterinary organisations, as well as political parties and other interested groups and individuals. The engagement has been constructive, and it has helped to refine the Bill. I am committed — I stress this — to continuing that engagement should the Bill progress today.

I will now touch briefly on the financial implications. The Bill itself has no direct, obvious financial effect in the ordinary sense. There may, of course, be some public impact in relation to enforcement by Departments and the PSNI, as is the case with any new criminal offence. When asked, the PSNI was not in a position to provide estimates for any additional resource requirements, and DAERA was similarly unable to provide quantifiable figures. Those are matters that can and should receive further scrutiny during the Bill's later stages, and I am perfectly content to engage on that with Members and others. However, the existence of enforcement considerations is not an argument against legislating where legislation is justified. If it were, very little new law would ever be passed.

I turn specifically to penalties and enforcement, as laid out under clause 5. Given that it aims to slot into the existing Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, the Bill amends article 27 of that Order and sets the penalties for the new offences. The penalties are up to 12 months in jail or a £20,000 fine, if dealt with in the Magistrates' Court, and up to five years in jail or an unlimited fine in the Crown Court. Those penalties are in keeping with the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 2011.

The enforcement provisions laid out under clause 11 also sit within the established wildlife enforcement framework and would rely on existing criminal justice processes, including investigation by the PSNI and the use of evidential material capable of demonstrating deliberate participation in hunting. That may include witness testimony, video footage, patterns of organised activity, the conduct of those present and the surrounding circumstances in which dogs are deployed. Enforcement is, therefore, evidence based, ensuring the distinction between accidental incidents and deliberate, organised hunting. It is not aimed at the innocent dog walker whose pet unexpectedly gives chase. It is not aimed at those engaged in lawful shooting activities where dogs are not being used to kill wild mammals deliberately. It is aimed at intentional conduct: planning a hunt; coordinating participants; deploying dogs in pursuit of a wild mammal; and facilitating that activity.

Before I conclude, I thank the USPCA, the League against Cruel Sports, the Assembly business and drafting teams and everyone else who has helped me officially and engaged with me to get to this stage. I also thank organisations such as Cats Protection for its express support for my Bill and, of course, my Alliance Party colleagues for their support and never-ending patience with me.

We claim to be a nation of animal lovers. We often see it as our duty to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

The Alliance Party has shown that it is prepared to do that. I hope that everyone else in the Chamber will stand with us against this cruel practice. The Bill is ultimately about what kind of society we want to be. It is about whether we believe that it is acceptable in 2026 that packs of hounds should still be used to chase and rip apart wild mammals for sport in Northern Ireland. It is about whether we believe that a practice that has been long rejected in every other region of the United Kingdom should continue here simply because it is a so-called tradition. As I said, I am of the belief that tradition is not a defence for cruelty.

The Bill takes a balanced approach, targeting cruelty while preserving legitimate exemptions for lawful land management. It closes loopholes that have caused difficulty elsewhere; aligns Northern Ireland with the direction of travel across the United Kingdom; and responds to clear public demand for change. It is time to stop allowing wild mammals to be chased and killed by packs of dogs in Northern Ireland. Blood sports have no place in a modern, civilised society. I ask Members to support the Second Stage of the Bill in order to consign this —.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr Blair: I give way to Mr Frew, but I will have to repeat what I just said.

Mr Frew: Thank you very much. The Bill sponsor talks about packs of hounds. Can he show me the page of his Bill that mentions "packs of hounds"?

Mr Blair: I thank the Member for his intervention. There is clear reference to that in the Bill; I am scanning through it now. I could not have pre-empted the question, so, if I need to come back to that later, I will.

Mr Frew: Yes, sure.

Mr Blair: There are references to dogs forming a pack, yes. If the Member does not mind, I will conclude my remarks. I will look at that further in a moment. As I said previously, I am prepared to engage on that going forward.

As I was saying, blood sports have no place in a modern, civilised society. I ask Members to support the Bill passing its Second Stage in order to consign this barbaric pastime to the past where it belongs. We are more than a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and we need to reflect that in terms of animal welfare.

Mr Butler (The Chairperson of the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): I rise initially as the Chair of the AERA Committee and, on its behalf, welcome the opportunity to speak at the Second Stage of the Hunting with Dogs Bill introduced on 27 April 2026.

The Committee was first made aware of the Bill sponsor John Blair's proposals in May 2025 and received an introductory briefing on the Bill at its meeting on 23 April 2026. The Committee wishes to place on record its thanks to the Member for his engagement thus far. The Committee understands that the Bill is intended to amend the existing Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, to bring the position more closely in line with legislation across the UK jurisdictions, including Scotland, as previously outlined by the Member.

The Member outlined that the purpose of the Bill is to prohibit the use of dogs to hunt, attack or kill wild mammals, and to address potential loopholes, including where trail hunting may be used to mask illegal hunting. It was also highlighted that the Bill provides for a number of exemptions to allow for the legitimate use of dogs, including for pest control and the protection of livestock. The Member further advised that the Bill does not address other forms of hunting, such as drag hunts or those involving firearms. We heard that the Member conducted an initial consultation from 21 October 2024 to 20 January 2025, alongside engagement with a range of representative groups. We heard that the majority of respondents supported the objectives of the Bill.

The Committee considered the Bill's 14 clauses and noted, first, that clause 1 introduces a new Part 3A into the 1985 Order to create offences relating to the deliberate hunting of wild mammals with dogs, including involvement in such activity. Clause 2 introduces a new provision that captures direct involvement in hunting and the organisation of, or participation in, such activity where one or more dogs are used, along with a related offence where a landowner allows such activity to take place on their land. We noted that clause 3 establishes an offence in relation to trail hunting, which is defined as the use of dogs:

Clause 4 creates an offence relating to terrier work.

Clause 5 amends article 27 of the 1985 Order to set out the penalties for the offences introduced in the Bill.

The Committee noted that clauses 6, 7, 8 and 10 provide exemptions for hunting rats and mice; for managing wild mammals in specified circumstances, such as preventing crop damage or controlling disease; for relieving the suffering of wild animals; and for training dogs to follow an animal-based scent where doing so is lawfully permissible.

The Committee noted that clause 9 permits the use of dogs under certain conditions to search for dead wild mammals. We noted that clause 11 seeks to amend the 1985 Order to provide for the enforcement of the offences created by the Bill and that clause 13 states that the Bill will become law six months after receiving Royal Assent.

Having sought an amendment to the Dilapidation Bill for a reporting and review clause, the Committee is pleased to note that clause 12 of the Hunting with Dogs Bill requires that the Department review the operation of the legislation at least once every five years.

The EFM indicates that the Bill does not give rise to any direct financial implications. It may place additional demands on departmental resources and on the PSNI to undertake inspections and enforcement, but fines arising from offences may contribute to offsetting enforcement and compliance costs.

The Committee took the opportunity to query a number of issues with the Member, including how enforcement officers would distinguish between a dog walker and someone engaged in hunting activity; how the legal position for someone who was shooting with multiple dogs would be interpreted by police; and how the distinction would be made between trail hunting and drag hunting, including whether drag hunting represented a viable alternative. The Member indicated to us that dealing with such matters would depend on the facts in each case, with enforcement officers being responsible for assessing the evidence. He emphasised that the provisions are intended to ensure that the legislation is effective and not undermined through the exploitation of potential loopholes. The Member also reiterated that the Bill is focused on the use of dogs in hunting wild mammals and does not extend to other activities, such as shooting or angling.

The Committee is aware that a number of stakeholders have raised concerns about the Bill's impact on farming practices, predator control, livestock protection and biodiversity.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Chair for giving way. He said that the Bill sponsor said that the Bill will have no impact on those of a shooting persuasion in Northern Ireland. Does he agree with me that that is potentially misleading, because, where gun owners engage in legal hunting activity with dogs such as with a springer spaniel or a cocker spaniel, they could fall foul of the legislation?

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question. That very question arose in the 2021 debate, which I will reference when I speak as a private Member. The Bill sponsor has possibly offered some reassurance in that regard by stating that there have been zero prosecutions in other parts of the UK under equivalent legislation. I do not want to speak for him, however. I am sure that we will return to that point later in the debate.

The Committee recognises that the aforementioned issues will require consideration should the Bill proceed to Committee Stage, in which there is likely to be considerable public interest, which there is already, as my phone has been dinging today. Thank you very much, Mr Blair.

At its meeting on 23 April, the Committee did not take a position on the Bill's general principles. Members agreed to consider the matter further in their respective parties and to convey their positions during the debate, which, with your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I will now do as the Ulster Unionist spokesperson for all things relating to agriculture, the environment and rural affairs.

The Ulster Unionist Party is broadly supportive of the principles underpinning the Hunting with Dogs Bill. We do so from a position that is grounded absolutely not in hostility towards rural life, farming, shooting or legitimate countryside management, as some may try to frame it, but in a belief that animal welfare legislation should reflect the highest ethical standards expected of a modern society.

From the outset, it is important to acknowledge plainly and honestly that vermin control and wildlife management are necessary components of rural living. Farmers, gamekeepers, land managers and rural communities face genuine challenges in protecting livestock, safeguarding biodiversity, preventing disease and managing species populations responsibly. We see that with badgers at the moment through the many debates that we have had in the Chamber. Nothing in this debate should diminish those responsibilities, nor should anyone suggest that those who work closest to the land are somehow indifferent to animal welfare. As the Chair of the AERA Committee, that has not been my experience when I have spoken to farmers, rural dwellers or land mangers. In many cases, they are among the strongest advocates of conservation, habitat protection, responsible stewardship and wildlife management. The question before the Assembly is not whether wildlife management is necessary — it is — but whether the hunting of wild mammals with packs or a number of dogs remains an acceptable and proportionate method of achieving those aims in a modern society.

We recognise the intention of the Bill, which is to prohibit the organised hunting of wild mammals with packs of dogs, while attempting to preserve exemptions for legitimate land management, pest control and animal welfare purposes. Under proposed article 23B of the 1985 Order, the Bill would create offences relating to hunting wild mammals using dogs and organising or participating in such activities. Importantly, however, the Bill also attempts to recognise practical countryside realities through a series of exemptions. Under article 23F, exemptions are created for the management of wild mammals above ground where the purposes include:

biodiversity.

The Ulster Unionist Party recognises and welcomes the fact that the Bill does not seek to eliminate all forms of lawful pest control or countryside management. However, our support for the principles of the Bill is qualified by the need for robust scrutiny and clear legal certainty. There are legitimate questions that must be addressed to ensure that lawful rural activities, responsible dog ownership and those who hunt to gun or for food are not unintentionally captured by overly broad drafting. The Bill sponsor must provide absolute clarity on how those provisions will operate in practice. When we make legislation in the Chamber, we do so sometimes with a lack of experience, because we are not here often enough to make really good legislation. We need to ensure that any legislation that we pass is subject to the highest levels of scrutiny and legal testing. We need to get it right first time, so that we do not have to return to the Chamber, hold our hands up and say, "We got it wrong".

I will make a few points for the Bill sponsor to pick up on during his winding-up speech. The Ulster Unionist Party seeks to understand how the Bill will clearly distinguish between unlawful hunting with dogs and lawful hunting to gun that is carried out for food or legitimate pest control purposes. We would like clarity on the safeguards that will exist to ensure that ordinary dog owners, rough shooters, gamekeepers and those engaged in lawful countryside pursuits are not inadvertently criminalised. We would like to know how the Bill sponsor intends to address concerns about legal certainty, particularly regarding the broad definitions of "participation" in article 23A and "searching" and "pursuing" in article 23B. We seek further clarity on what constitutes a dog "under control" for the purposes of the exemptions under article 23F; on what potential evidential threshold will apply in determining whether a lawful countryside activity has crossed into criminal liability; and on how the legislation will ensure that the accidental or incidental flushing out of wild mammals during lawful activities does not become subject to prosecution. We would like to know whether the Bill sponsor intends to introduce a clearer mental element, such as intent, recklessness or knowledge, to ensure that inadvertent conduct is not criminalised, and how he will ensure that enforcement agencies are engaged so that the provisions are applied consistently across all our rural communities. Those are reasonable and necessary questions.

Supporting the principles of improved animal welfare legislation does not remove our responsibility to ensure that legislation is workable, proportionate and enforceable in practice. Indeed, a number of concerns have been raised through stakeholder engagement over the past number of weeks. It is entirely proper that those matters be rigorously examined. In particular, with your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I seek further updates from the Member today, if he has any, on how the exemptions in article 23F will operate practically. The Member will know that the threshold of "more than two dogs" jumps out at me, because I have conversed with him about it. What evidence supports that figure, and how will that be captured to ensure that, when there is more than one person present, it is very clear that, rather than being just two dogs, it is two dogs per person? If the Member has evidence of how he came to the threshold of two dogs, that would be really useful. How will "reasonable steps" be objectively assessed to ensure that dogs do not become a pack, as Mr Frew pointed out? What constitutes sufficient evidence that permission has been granted by a landowner? I know only too well —

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr Butler: I will make this point, and then I will.

I know only too well about the landowner's perspective. In Lagan Valley, the only hunting incidents in which I have been involved were ones in which hunts had gone across farms and lands that they were not permitted to. Farmers got together and lobbied their local politicians in Lagan Valley to ban hunting because they had no control over the hunts going over their land.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. Where in the Bill does it say that eight persons who go out with a gun to hunt mammals can take eight dogs with them?

Mr Butler: I get the point that you are making, and I would like it to be addressed.

Mr Blair: I am grateful to Mr Butler for giving way. If it helps, I can point out, in response to the intervention made to Mr Butler, that, where someone is going out and shooting, as referenced by Mr Frew, they are not subject to the Bill, because they are shooting and not using dogs to kill a wild mammal. It is as clear as that, as is the case in other jurisdictions. I will say more on it later, but, for clarification, that sets it out.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for his question, and I thank the Bill's author for his answer.

The debate on this matter in 2021 was one of the more lively ones. If any of you were here for the debate, you will know that there were impassioned speeches and excellent questions. That debate pointed to the fact that, when we want to do it properly, we can. The points that I have outlined are not attempts to undermine the Bill. Rather, they are essential questions to ask if the Assembly is to produce legislation that commands public confidence and avoids unintended consequences.

We acknowledge that Northern Ireland remains the only part of the United Kingdom where hunting wild mammals with packs of dogs has not been prohibited. As a unionist, I genuinely struggle with that. I understand that we have a devolved Assembly and can make up our own minds, but there are certain things on which I do not like to lag behind my brothers and sisters in England, Scotland and Wales. However, alignment with other jurisdictions cannot be the sole basis for legislation. The Assembly must ensure that any law passed here is precise, proportionate and workable within the particular context of Northern Ireland's rural communities and countryside practices. At its heart, this debate is and must be about balance. It is possible to support stronger animal welfare protections whilst recognising the legitimate realities of rural life. It is possible to oppose cruelty whilst supporting lawful pest control, biodiversity management and sustainable countryside practice. It is also possible to support the broad intent of the Bill whilst seeking substantial reassurance, clarification and refinement before it proceeds further.

For those reasons, whilst we are prepared to support the Bill's broad principles at this stage, that support is qualified pending further scrutiny, greater legal clarity and assurances that lawful countryside activity will not be unintentionally criminalised.

Ms Murphy: At the outset, I declare an interest as a firearms licence holder for sporting purposes and vermin control. I know that related issues have been raised during the debate, so I want to get that on the record.

Sinn Féin MLAs will support the Bill's progressing to Committee Stage, when it can be fully considered, scrutinised and, where necessary, strengthened. We support the protection of high animal welfare standards across the island of Ireland. In that context, we support the principle of a targeted ban on fox hunting with dogs for the purposes of leisure, as part of a broader approach to regulating hunting.

The intention of the Bill is to tackle unnecessary cruelty to animals caused by hunting with dogs, and we support that objective. It is important to be clear that it is not an outright ban on hunting. The Bill includes important exemptions for hunting with dogs in circumstances such as, as has been referenced, protecting livestock and managing wildlife. Those exemptions are welcome, however we have concerns that, as currently drafted, they are not sufficient. More work will be needed to ensure that hunting with dogs can continue, where necessary, to effectively and practically protect livestock and manage wildlife populations. Protections for farmers to defend their livestock from predators must be clear and workable. Equally, exemptions relating to hunting for the purposes of obtaining food or managing species' populations must be robust and practical. As drafted, the provisions relating to hunting mammals with dogs, including the prohibition of terrier work, do not sufficiently account for the realities facing farmers or the practicalities of wildlife management. Removing the ability to properly flush out a mammal that will naturally retreat underground risks ignoring the real challenges of protecting livestock. It also fails to reflect fully the complexity of managing wildlife populations in rural areas. We are, however, willing to work constructively with the Bill's sponsor, and with colleagues from across the House, to strengthen the exemptions and make any necessary improvements at Committee Stage.

We have concerns regarding the Bill's treatment of activities involving animal-based scents that do not involve the hunting of mammals, such as trail hunting. We should be exploring how alternatives to traditional hunting can be supported, such as trail hunting and drag hunting. That approach would recognise the social and cultural importance of those activities, which have been embedded in rural communities across Ireland for generations.

We must also be mindful of unintended consequences, as was touched on by the Chair of the AERA Committee. For example, concerns were raised with most of us over the weekend about the criminalisation of dog walkers in rural areas whose dogs may unexpectedly break free from a leash and pursue a mammal. As the Bill moves through its Committee Stage, we will want to hear from all stakeholders, including animal welfare organisations, farming representatives, rural and countryside groups, legal experts and, of course, members of the public. That engagement will be vital to ensuring that we achieve the right balance in protecting animal welfare whilst recognising the practical realities of rural life.

Mr T Buchanan: I rise to oppose the Bill. The reasons for opposing it are threefold: it is legislatively weak, practically unworkable and fundamentally damaging to the rural people of Northern Ireland. The House has a duty to pass laws that are clear, proportionate, enforceable and grounded in evidence. This Bill fails to meet each of those tests.

The former Attorney General, John Larkin KC, has highlighted what many of us have long suspected, namely that the Bill is poorly drafted, legally ambitious and constitutionally problematic. It creates offences that are vague, ill-defined and open to arbitrary interpretation. It risks criminalising people, not for intent but for circumstances that are entirely outside their control. When a Bill is so unclear that senior legal figures warn that it will collapse under scrutiny, the Assembly should sit up and take notice. The Bill would place law-abiding farmers, dog handlers, pest controllers and rural workers at risk of prosecution for carrying out essential everyday tasks. It would criminalise legitimate fox control and expose our farming community to prosecution. It would make routine pest management legally hazardous and create offences that depend on hindsight rather than on intent.

The Bill is not about tackling cruelty. Rather, it is about criminalising rural life. The people who would be targeted are the very people who maintain the countryside, protect livestock and uphold high standards of animal welfare. Clause 1 presents a real risk to farmers. For example, a farmer whose dog flushes a fox while protecting livestock would fall foul of the law and receive a criminal conviction. As was mentioned, if someone is walking their pet dog and the dog follows the scent of a rabbit or another animal, that person could receive a criminal conviction. That is clear in the Bill.

The Bill is not supported by scientific evidence, welfare data, economic analysis or a credible assessment of its rural impact. In fact, support for the Bill in the consultation survey amounted to only 0·44% of the Northern Ireland population, yet the Bill ignores the Burns inquiry, DEFRA research, and multiple independent studies of effective and humane wildlife management.

The Bill is in breach of the Rural Needs Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, which requires public authorities, including the Assembly, to consider the impact of legislation on rural communities. There is no rural impact assessment, no economic modelling and no recognition of the consequences of the Bill for farmers, land managers, rural businesses, conservation groups or working dog handlers. That is why the Bill is fundamentally flawed: its removal of effective control methods of fox management would have greater consequences for animal welfare.

The Bill seeks to ban trail hunting, but it is drafted in such a way as to mean that the proposed ban on trail hunting would also render unlawful the use of dogs to find and flush out rats or mice. The definition of "trail hunt" is:

What does the former Attorney General say about that? He says:

under that provision:

A farmer who has a problem with vermin in barns or outhouses would be "seriously impeded" in protecting his or her property. Again, there we have an attack on the farming community who seek to protect their livestock, their grain and all that goes with being in that community.

There are also detrimental consequences for those who are involved in country sport. Mr Blair has said that someone who is out shooting and has their dogs with them would be exempt from that provision, but that is not in the Bill. They are not protected because it is not in the Bill; if it is not in the Bill, those people are not protected. In the Committee, when I questioned Mr Blair about what constituted a "group" or a "pack" of dogs, he said that that meant anything over two dogs. Many people in the rural community have more than two dogs and go out walking with them; they are therefore —

Mr Blair: Will the Member give way?

Mr T Buchanan: — open to a criminal conviction.

Mr Blair: May I clarify that for the Member? I am trying to be helpful and courteous. Does the Member accept, in good faith, that, when I gave that answer in Committee, I was not trying to be obstructive? I was trying to be factual. The dictionary definition — the any-Google-search definition — of a "pack" of dogs is "more than two dogs". It is not about my or someone else's opinion on what should be in law. Does he accept that I gave the answer in that context and for no other reason?

Mr T Buchanan: Maybe the Member would accept that many people in rural areas have two, three or four springer spaniel dogs that they take out?

Mr Martin: More than one.

Mr T Buchanan: Many more than one. When they go out with them for a walk or whatever, they would therefore be open to criminal conviction under the provisions of the Bill.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. To be clear, although the Bill is not clear, it provides for an article 23A stating:

It is one dog, not a pack.

Mr T Buchanan: Thank you for that.

Due to the lack of clarity in the Bill, there is also an issue for PSNI officers. How can they be expected to determine in real time whether a dog's behaviour constitutes "hunting" under the Bill's ill-defined terms? I wonder what consultation there has been with the PSNI on the resource implications of enforcing the legislation.

We have before us a Bill that is not only not balanced but that, I would go so far as to say, discriminates against the rural community and those who love their dogs.

Mr McGlone: I thank the Member for introducing the Bill. Like Ms Murphy, I declare an interest as the holder of a firearm certificate, which I hold for the purposes of sport and some vermin control.

In the debate, we consider that animal welfare is paramount and that it is paramount that we get the legislation on that right. No one wants to see animals torn asunder by dogs. I agree with the spirit of the Bill, as, I am sure, most Members do. I am from and live in a rural area. Many of my friends, neighbours and family are involved in shooting sports as, indeed, am I and others from the area. I have therefore received quite a bit of communication on this.

We have to go with the evidence that is in front of us. More recently, I have read in some detail the advice given by the former Attorney General, John Larkin KC. He gave a legal analysis that raised concerns about what may legally constitute, for example, the pursuit of a wild animal, as well as some other matters of concern in the Bill. I have no doubt that there may be those unintended consequences, but they nevertheless require further scrutiny.

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) has taken legal advice. It has concerns about the implications of "searching for and pursuing" and about the scope of criminal liability, among other things. Mrs Cameron referred to walking dogs. The BASC also raised the issue of that possibly being within scope of criminal law. That is of widespread concern among those who hold firearms for sporting purposes and vermin control.

The phrase "using dogs", for those who are not aware, could refer to a group of four or five people who are crossing the fields on their way to Lough Neagh with five or six dogs. Does that constitute a pack, if a rabbit or hare goes across and four or five of the dogs dart after it? That is another issue that will have to be considered as we clarify what the unintended consequences of the Bill might be.

I will take it a stage further. There are those who feel that those who engage in shooting sports as their main hobby could accidentally fall within the scope of the Bill, jeopardising their firearm certificates. The only place that that could be tested is in a court of law. Therefore, that must be clarified. I will explain. For example, if a police officer determines that a person is breaking the law — in this instance, that would be this law, as it stands — their firearms are taken. So that people understand this, something goes on their file. When it comes to reconsideration, even if the person is determined not to have been breaking the law, something has gone on their file about whether they may or may not be a fit person, because they have come to the notice of the police. Bear that in mind.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr McGlone: Yes.

Mr Frew: Given the state of our justice system and the time that it takes for a case to go to court, that could mean someone being deprived of their firearms for up to two or three years.

Mr McGlone: I thank the Member for that. We have to work through the practical implications. Even if the case does not go to court — I am sure that the Member, like me, has dealt with multiple cases in which firearms have been scooped — by the time it has been determined that there is no case to answer it may be a year, a year and a half or two years after there has been a perceived incident or an allegation without substance.

The other issue that those from rural areas will understand is that firearms may have been inherited and are precious. Those who hold firearms are among the most law-abiding people in Northern Ireland.

There is so much detail that requires much more scrutiny under the microscope of the legislative Committee. We have heard the evidence and the legal briefs from the former Attorney General, and we cannot just pooh-pooh that. The evidence given by BASC can also not be ignored.

I would welcome the Bill's being allowed to come before the Committee to receive the detailed scrutiny that is required to drill down into the issues and, should it be needed, to get clarity — legislative or otherwise — so that those who have highlighted their concerns will be given the opportunity to present their evidence. For that reason, I support the Bill's moving to Committee Stage.

Mr Frew: Before I commence my contribution, I will say that it is a great honour for a Member to bring a private Member's Bill to the House, and, because of the work that they have had to put in in order to do so, I congratulate anyone and everyone who does. I commend John Blair for his actions and for his work on the Bill, as well as for his previous work on a Bill on the same subject that he introduced in the previous mandate. It takes a lot of hard work, research, scrutiny and consultation to get to this point, and I commend him for that.

That is where I will stop giving out compliments, because I cannot agree with the Bill. I am concerned about the people who live in the countryside, their way of life, how they manage the countryside, how they manage the wild animals in and around their environment and how the Bill would impact on their life, their livelihood and their livestock. More than that, the Bill will affect their way of life, their traditions and even what they eat.

Let me explore that. The motivation behind the Bill may be sound and clear, but it is not about traditional fox hunting. It is not just about the people who wear grey or red coats, blare trumpets and ride horses to chase foxes with a pack of hounds. The Bill says nothing about that. It is about more than that. We must concern ourselves with what the Bill says and does.

I have concerns about the Bill sponsor's party. Only last week, the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs stated:

He went on to say that hunting is:

Mr Muir (The Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: Yes.

Mr Muir: Does the Member accept that those comments were made in the context of a specific reference to the Bill, which is what we are considering? The Member will recognise the complexity of the issue, and we heard that in Mr Butler's contribution. We are scrutinising the Bill in question.

Mr Frew: I thank the Minister for his clarification. I hope that it is a clarification and that it does not mean that he thinks that angling or fishing is cruel or that dispatching an animal humanely is cruel. I do not know whether the Minister has seen how a wild mammal dies naturally. Most foxes will die of disease, but a fox will not be left alone to die. It will probably starve to death or be attacked and eaten by another wild animal. Not only will it be attacked and eaten but its young will be. That is how an animal in the wild dies a natural death.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: I will.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for illustrating that point, because it is sometimes lost. Does he agree that man cannot abstract himself from proper and effective management of the countryside and biodiversity? If he comes up against such realities, his claim to be acting in the interests of animal welfare goes out the window.

Mr Frew: Yes, it does. I do not know anyone who hunts who does not care passionately about the wildlife in and around their environment. I have not met a hunter who goes out to cause unnecessary harm to any animal that they hunt.

It is not what they are made of; it is not what they do.

Mr Honeyford: Thank you for giving way, Paul. You are portraying it as if the countryside as a whole thinks that. I live in the countryside, and I do not agree with you. Many others do. You say that the people in the hunts do not go out to harm anybody. I have met farmers in my constituency who have been terrorised by hunts trashing their land, ripping up fences and going through their land. They are a law unto themselves. You are giving us a sad story, but you are not portraying two sides. We are talking about hunting with dogs, but you are talking about everything but that.

Mr Frew: I agree with the Member; he is right. In my time in politics, I have heard from many aggrieved farmers who have had to stop the traditional hunt going over their land because of the damage that it was doing to fences, the soil, land, grass and sometimes even crops. Therefore, I agree with the Member, but that is not what the Bill is about; that is not what the Bill encapsulates.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. I will try not to do one back at particular narratives, but will the Member acknowledge that the vast majority of individuals who engage in lawful hunting activity do so with the consent of the landowner — often multiple landowners — and, where some fall foul of that, the farmer or individual has the ability to take them before the courts for trespassing on ground on which they had no permission to be?

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for his intervention. I will move on, because we want to make progress. We have not got unlimited time, and people want to get home tonight.

Do the Bill sponsor, his party and the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs think that wild animals do not need to be managed in the countryside? Do they think that they do not need to be humanely dispatched in the countryside? Do they think that people should not hunt for food? Do they think that that is unacceptable or cruel? Is it cruel to hunt to provide restaurants with food? Is that wrong? Should that be stopped? There is a danger that the Bill could do that. The Minister might have some restaurateurs coming to his door if it hurts their supply chain and their ability to produce good food that we can all enjoy and which we need for nourishment.

Mr Brett: I appreciate the Member giving way. He knows more about rural issues than I do, but I am unaware of any supply chain or restaurant that sends out mammals to hunt animals that are then caught, brought to the restaurant and used. Does the Member have examples of those in his constituency?

Mr Frew: Yes, I have. I have a number of restaurants that use game. To educate the Member for North Belfast, game can be rabbit and venison. That is game. In all circumstances —

Mr Butler: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: I will, in a minute. In all circumstances, most of the hunters who shoot that game will use dogs.

Mr Butler: I thank the Member for giving way. We are conflating two issues. The Member did not ask whether game was on the menu. The Member was asking about whether game that you were going to eat and which was on the menu would have been hunted down by a dog and killed by a dog, not lifted by a dog after it had been shot. Do not forget that we are not talking about dogs generally; we are talking about dogs that are specifically sent out to kill the animal.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for that important point. How do you prove that that mammal was killed by the dog? Most dogs are trained well. They are trained to retrieve and not to damage the game or the prey. That can also be birds, not just mammals. It is important, but how do you prove it in the Bill? You cannot, because the only interpretation of hunting in the Bill is:

That is the interpretation of hunting. How is it defined? It is defined as "searching for and pursuing." On the point of "searching for and pursuing", you do not even have to catch a mammal to break the law.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: Yes.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member accept that that is one of the most fundamental misunderstandings of the Bill by the Chair of the Agriculture Committee? The game on the menu, in this instance, is not killed by the dog; the dog is part of the pursuit and part of the search. Under the Bill, those involved are liable for prosecution for hunting a mammal.

Mr Frew: That is where my concerns about the Bill come from. If the Bill was purely about the traditional hunt — the red coats, the horses, the trumpets, the sailing over fences — it would surely be called the "Hunting with Horses Bill". If it was to do with packs of hounds, it would be called the "Hunting with Packs of Hounds Bill". This is about hunting, which will encapsulate shooting. This is about hunting with one or more dogs. If you go out with a gun and a gun dog to retrieve the prey that you have shot for countryside management, food or, for that matter, sport, you will be liable to be prosecuted under this law. What will happen then? As Patsy McGlone ably said, you will be investigated and could well be arrested for a crime. Your guns will be confiscated immediately, and it could be years before you get those guns back. Is that not a chill factor created by the Bill?

I should point out that, in the last mandate, Mr Blair introduced a Bill in which his definition was:

There is no doubt that John has changed his position, but I am still not sure that the Assembly should pass the Bill, because it has deep flaws and clarification is needed to make it safe for the rural community, the countryside and everyone who partakes in hunting.

We have looked at "Interpretation of this Part", which refers to:

The Bill then states:

I think that that clarifies the answer to the Chair of the Committee's question about whether it would be OK if eight people organised to go out for a shoot and had eight dogs with them. I think that I have proven that that is not the case, for two reasons. The first is that hunting is hunting a wild mammal using one dog, and the second reason is that you cannot organise or participate in the hunting of a wild mammal using one or more dogs. The answer to your question about where you can organise a shoot is that you cannot. Will the farmer, the shooter or the gunman risk it, if he thinks that his guns will be confiscated?

I will read on:

Are you telling me that any landowner will allow any sort of shooting or hunting on their land if they think that they will be prosecuted? They will not be able to see what is happening. They will not see the dog going left, right and centre.

Mr Butler: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: Yes, I will give way again.

Mr Butler: The Member makes really good points, and the purpose of scrutiny is to ensure that there are no unintended consequences. Does the Member have any data on the legislation that was passed in Scotland, Wales or England? Some of that is now 20 years old. The Bill sponsor has suggested that there is no evidence to uphold the argument that is being made.

Mr Frew: I hear that defence. Maybe that is just because it is bad law. Maybe that is just because the police do not enforce the law. We have occasions, even in this place — Northern Ireland — when the police do not want to publicise law or offences: they just do not bother with them because they have other things to do. That is not really a defence for us passing bad law, so I worry about that.

The Bill is flawed. As I said, the only definition in the Bill seems to be that:

"searching for". A dog, by its very nature, will search for animals. That is where ordinary dog walkers will fall foul of the legislation. There is a real risk that — the Member has referred to such concerns — it could well criminalise ordinary dog walkers, whether they live in the countryside or the town, north Belfast or south Belfast — wherever they live — who are out walking their dog in a park and the dog chases after a squirrel, rabbit or hare. I do not know whether there are any hares in north Belfast, but there should be. I have a real concern about a dog "searching for and pursuing" a wild mammal.

The Bill then goes on to talk about terrier work:

How do you prove inducement? How do you prove that someone induced their dog to go into a hole? It talks about an "enclosed space". What is an enclosed space? I do not know. I suggest that nobody in the Chamber knows what an enclosed space is. Is it a hole, a barn, a pile of stones, a midden — some of you might not know what a midden is — a vehicle, a field or a hedgerow? Does anyone know what an enclosed space is in that regard? I do not know.

Also, there are the penalties. A person who is guilty of an offence under new article 23B, which relates to hunting and, I think, shooting with a dog, new article 23C, which relates to trail hunting, or new article 23D, which relates to terrier work — and remember that 23B —.

Mr Blair: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: Yes, of course I will.

Mr Blair: Will the Member accept from me — I hope, in the right spirit — that my explanation at the start of the debate of hunting a wild mammal using one or more dogs is really quite self-explanatory? It is using one or more dogs to hunt, catch and kill a wild mammal. That is completely different from using a gun to hunt the wild mammal. That is the difference. That is why guns are not included. The intended offence is to:

That really is self-explanatory. The Member is asking for things to be included that are not included, which is, frankly — I say it respectfully — preposterous, but this — [Interruption.]

I am explaining it to you. The Bill explains it clearly. Will you accept that?

Mr Frew: The sponsor is explaining it to me, but I am reading his Bill. His Bill says:

It is not about catching and eating or tearing apart; it is about "searching for and pursuing". Those are his own words in his Bill.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. Does he agree that there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding by the Member who tabled the Bill? In an earlier comment, he referred to the word "pack" as being in the Bill. No such word appears in the Bill. Does he also agree that it is the broad definition and terms that the Member has outlined, particularly the broad definition of hunting activity, that mean that the very instances that he has outlined will capture a far greater extent, whether that be dog walkers, those who have a gun and a dog or those who have a couple of terriers, springer spaniels or cocker spaniels? It is so vast that they will naturally fall under the catchment of the Bill. It is one of two things: it is either broad because it does not know what exactly its intent is, or, perhaps, it is more sinister and is designed in such a way as to encapsulate those people.

Mr Frew: I thank Mr Buckley for his contribution. He makes a really good intervention and really good points. I will take the Member at face value.

Mr Blair: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: Yes, I will.

Mr Blair: I will be brief. The Member may consider that Mr Buckley made a good intervention, but it was an inaccurate one. I will explain why. If he looks at page 4, which sets out new article 23G, he will see, from 2(a) onwards, a number of references to a "pack" of dogs.

If we are going to question that, let us at least read the Bill, and let us at least be accurate. Packs of dogs are mentioned in the Bill three or four times, on two pages, from new article 23G onwards. [Interruption.]

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for his intervention and for that explanation, but that is all really irrelevant when he talks about hunting with one dog. When you cannot hunt with one dog, the question of whether the Bill mentions "pack" becomes irrelevant. I did not see the word "pack", by the way. I could be wrong, but I have read it, and I cannot see the word "pack". It talks about "one or more dogs".

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Order. Sorry, Paul.

Mr Frew: OK.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Obviously, it is a very passionate debate. Yes, Deputy Speaker; thank you. Bill sponsor; thank you.

Mr Frew: I compliment the Member on his passion. I absolutely do. I like to see passion in the Chamber. I like to have his intervention, and I like the toing and froing, because that is what proper debate is, and that is why I encourage that as we go through the Bill.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Frew: For one more time. [Laughter.]

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member. For clarity of the record, the word "pack" is in the Bill at line 35. I will be honest in the debate. I just hope that others will be too. [Interruption.]

Mr Frew: Oh, there we go, and the Member has won a small victory there with regard to that.

There is no doubt that the Bill will pass this stage. Sinn Féin has made many a U-turn this week. Its position on this is just one of them. Of course, its members will answer for that themselves with their own constituents and in their own policies as they go forward.

There are a number of exemptions in the Bill, and I am grateful for them, but why did the Bill sponsor not go further? Of all the exceptions in the Scottish Act, there are only two here in Northern Ireland. Why has he left out licences for use of more than two dogs for the activity mentioned above? It is simply because the Bill deals with "one dog or more", so he cannot use that exemption. He cannot use a licensing regime, because he wants to ban hunting with "a dog".

The Scottish Act also refers to the "management of foxes below ground". There is no exemption for that here, as far as I can see. There is an exemption for using a dog above ground. My problem is this: how can anybody with a dog control it to the point that he keeps the dog above ground when it is chasing a mammal? A mammal will go underground. Its instinct will be to go underground, and the dog's instinct will also be to go underground, so that exemption does not really pass the sniff test. Pardon the pun. I know that you appreciated that, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

Then you have section 6:

I heard the proposer of the Bill say that, if it is not in the Bill, it does not need to be covered in the Bill. However, he inserts his provisions after article 23 of the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985. Part III of that Order, which is straight before this amendment going in, deals with the protection of deer, so he should, I believe, have included provisions for deerstalking, where you will use a dog. When you go out to stalk deer, you go out to shoot it, and you dispatch it humanely. You shoot it in the head so that you can get food from the carcass. You will have a dog, with a lead tied around your waist, to direct you in the scent of that deer. You could walk for miles and cover acres before you come across a deer, so you use a dog to steer the deer stalk. Then, you can use that dog to flush out that mammal to get it to a point where you can dispatch it safely, with a decent background, so that you fire that weapon safely.

You run the risk, when not using a dog and not having flushed the mammal out, of not being able to take a safe, clear shot. There are all sorts of ramifications, and there should have been exemptions for deerstalking in the Bill to cover that because it is common in Northern Ireland.

The exemptions that are in the Bill include:

How can you keep a dog above ground? They can:

Paragraph 2 states:

I would really welcome it if the Bill sponsor could tell me whether, if a fox goes into a henhouse and destroys 50% of the hens and comes back the very next night to take the rest, that farmer can use a gun to dispatch that fox and use his dog to flush that fox out.

Mr Blair: I have already answered that.

Mr Frew: OK. You have answered it. I suppose that I need further clarification over my concern. The Bill talks about exemptions for the purposes of "preserving human health". What does "human health" mean? I do not know. It is not defined in the Bill. Therefore, where does the wild animal come into it when it is about "preserving human health"? I do not know.

It also talks about:

Ground-nesting birds and their eggs are so vulnerable to mammals. Foxes and other mammals will deprive that area of ground-nesting birds, and they will do in quick fashion.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. That is a really important point. In the Bill sponsor's opening comments, he tried to make it apparent to all who were listening that there is more risk to ground-nesting birds from one or more dogs than from the very population that he seeks to protect. It is clear from any evidence that ground-nesting birds and, indeed, other endangered species on the ground are most at risk from foxes and other predator species, not dogs.

Mr Frew: I will add to that. Even in a built-up area, cats, rather than dogs, are more at risk of attacking a fox. Therefore, there are issues around why the Bill sponsor has picked on dogs.

He also talked about the exemption for the purpose of "preventing the spread of disease". Again, what does that mean? Is it the disease of animals, or is it the risk of disease spreading among humans? That is very important point, and it is not clarified in the Bill. I hope that the Bill sponsor can clarify that.

The Bill goes on to say that the conditions for the exemptions are:

In that case, you can use one dog, but:

You could have the best trained dog in the world, but its instinct will be to go underground if that mammal goes underground. How does he define a dog being "under control"? How does he stop that one dog meeting up with other dogs on the same scent? Does that mean that the hunter is liable for prosecution and, at that point, is causing an offence? Those are all valid questions that need to be asked and ironed out before the hunting fraternity, whether that is on foot or anywhere else, has any sort of assurance from the Bill.

There is also an issue around:

Why would you go to the bother of training a dog to pick up animal-based scents when you are forbidding the dog from being used?

I would like to know what "reasonable steps" the Member is talking about that need to be taken to ensure:

If you are out in the wild, in open countryside, how could you ever prevent your dog from going after a wild mammal? How could you ever prevent your dog from pursuing a wild mammal and injuring or even killing it? That is where the dog walker bit comes in, because a gun dog is trained to preserve its prey and not damage it. It holds the prey in its mouth without damaging it, but a pet dog does not have that same training. I therefore have real issues with the Bill.

I have outlined only some of my concerns about the Bill. I am sorry that my contribution has taken so long, but it is really important that the issues be ironed out at this point. It looks as though the Bill will pass its Second Stage and move to Committee Stage. I say this to the Committee: you have a job of work to do to make sure that the Bill is fit for purpose and does not penalise the humble hunter with a gun.

Ms Nicholl: I will start by congratulating my colleague John Blair. I am really proud of him. He has been working on the Bill for so long and is so passionate about the issue. My son was with me when I was coming into Stormont this morning, and I pointed at John and said, "There's John. He has a really big day today". I explained to my son what the Bill is about, and he asked, "Why would anyone want to do that?". He was thrilled to have a chat with John about why the Bill is so important. John therefore deserves recognition for his tenacity and determination in developing the legislation.

The Bill is really important. I am conscious that I am a South Belfast MLA, but I grew up in rural Zimbabwe, where hunting is very normal. I am therefore passionate about the issue. Hunting with dogs is cruel and unnecessary and is incompatible with a modern society. It has been proven that foxes, deer and hares are physiologically and psychologically damaged when chased by a hunt, regardless of whether it results in death. One of my constituents who is watching the debate emailed me to say that they are really frustrated by the argument that hunting with dogs is no worse than what happens in nature. They made the clear point that that statement does not justify human-inflicted suffering. Of course what happens in nature is cruel, but why do we add to that cruelty?

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. It is an important point, but man's intervention, and, indeed, his intervention with a dog, can often prevent the abject cruelty that nature imposes on animals, where a diseased animal can survive for days, in which a prolonged period of cruelty is often inflicted on it.

Ms Nicholl: I do not agree with that. I have heard your points, and of course there is suffering in nature. What happens in nature is often horrific for us to witness, but the Bill is about humans instigating that suffering. For me, the Bill is fundamentally about addressing animal cruelty, and, to be honest, when we get into a tangled conversation about it, I feel that such arguments are a means of defence because it is inconvenient to say otherwise. We are justifying the deliberate killing of animals for pleasure and sport. I find that very hard to get my head around. This is about the sort of society in which we want to live, and so many of my constituents are so passionate about the issue. We have received so many emails in the past number of weeks from people who are genuinely very distressed by it.

The Bill desires to prohibit the hunting of wild animals with dogs, trail hunting and terrier work in Northern Ireland. I credit my colleague John for explaining ad nauseam that the Bill is not about banning hunting with a gun. Rather, it is about banning trying to kill wild animals with a dog. The Bill will not prevent animal cruelty in Northern Ireland, as there will always be elements of that, but it will play its part in preventing that type of cruelty. It is also about the disturbance of protected habitats, the disruption of ecosystems and disease concerns. My colleague David Honeyford regularly talks about the impact of disease on farms. Hunting is a source of entertainment and, as outlined by the British Pest Control Association, is not a legitimate form of pest control.

The Bill is informed by the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023 and slots into an existing regulatory framework for protecting wildlife, as set out in the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985. The important point to focus on in the debate is that the Bill is not about criminalising ordinary dog walking, or any ordinary or legal countryside activities. A dog chasing an animal does not constitute an offence, and the Bill will not treat it as such. It focuses on the deliberate hunting behaviour by the owner or participant. It does not affect shooting, angling or drag hunting but merely intends to close loopholes and provide a stronger framework for enforcement while preventing animal cruelty, preserving biodiversity and protecting landowners' families, crops and livestock.

My final point is that public opinion is clear. Over 72% of those who said that they lived in Northern Ireland agreed with the proposal and said that all hunting, including searching, coursing, capturing or killing wild animals with dogs, should be banned in Northern Ireland. A staggering 80·45% said that ending the hunting of wild animals with dogs was important to them, and 70·35% said that they fully supported the intentions of the Bill. Those results show the strength of feeling on the matter.

I believe that it is morally wrong to kill for pleasure. I do not think that tradition is an excuse for cruelty. I agree with what John said: we are a nation of animal lovers. That is why I am proud to support the Bill, and I urge everyone to consider the importance of animal welfare and the public support for the legislation and to support the Second Stage of the Bill.

Ms Forsythe: As someone who has initiated a Member's Bill in this Assembly term, I understand and in no way underestimate the amount of work that has been undertaken by the Bill sponsor to introduce this legislation. Like my colleague Paul Frew, I congratulate Mr Blair on that.

I love animals, and of course I care about animal welfare, but the Bill is not just an animal welfare Bill; it is about so much more than that. The consequences for those of us who live in rural Northern Ireland will be huge and significant. Even though I can see that I am in the minority in the Assembly, I will still take the opportunity to speak up for those whom I represent. While I do not support the Bill, I can see that it is going to pass its Second Stage today.

The Bill sponsor said that the Bill's provisions have been tried and tested in other jurisdictions. As my colleague Paul Frew outlined, however, the Bill does not directly replicate legislation that exists elsewhere, as it has been changed. I have also been consistent in expressing my concern that Members' Bills come to the Assembly without going through the full departmental structures. Where there is substantive change and a commitment through legislation, I believe that it is best that that is fully informed and brought forward with allocated funding by the Departments. I believe that this legislative proposal should come through those structures in order to ensure that it is fully scrutinised and applied appropriately.

I have specific concerns, having read the section in the explanatory and financial memorandum that sets out the financial effects of the Bill and which, I believe, is contradictory. Paragraph 20 of the explanatory and financial memorandum states that the Bill has no direct financial consequences. Paragraph 22 states that there would be implications for the public purse with the requirement for increased staffing costs for the PSNI, yet no costing is provided. That is clearly a financial consequence. The next paragraph discusses fines to offset enforcement costs. The Bill cites fines in the region of £20,000, which, again, represents a clear financial consequence. At a time of extreme financial pressures on the Budget, which continue to increase, we need to be honest about what everything we do means for the public finances. I believe that we need to do that when we look at the Bill.

What is the true cost to the PSNI? Just the other day, the Justice Minister, from the Bill sponsor's party, highlighted the budget pressures and cuts to policing that would be required under the current financial constraints. Were this Member's Bill to be passed, it would potentially prioritise policing these matters over other police work. I have been consistent on that point. The Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill would mean an additional cost of £30 million a year, which must be found from the Education budget, and education services would be cut in order to fund it. The Areas with Natural Constraints (Payments) Bill would cost an additional £11 million a year, which would need to be found from the DAERA budget, taking money from other farming funding streams.

Members' Bills should not be brought forward at this time, as they put burdens on the Assembly Budget, with the Executive then struggling to deliver other objectives. At the very least, the Bill should be costed. I do not understand why there has not been a broad attempt to cost it. Without that, the Bill does not stand up.

Pam Cameron made a point about unintended consequences. Proposed article 23A(2), which states:

lacks a meaningful statutory limitation. It is incredibly vague on the line at which criminal liability exists. That is incredibly concerning for those of us who own animals and live in the Northern Ireland countryside. The Bill is not specific. There is no defence of intent. It is shocking to think that I could be criminalised if, when I am out on my walk, my dog "is pursuing", as it states in proposed article 23B(4), a rabbit, squirrel or any other type of vermin, or that that could happen to any other dog owner. In any case, I have little confidence in the defence around intention, because, as we have seen recently, people have been prosecuted for their thoughts when praying in public.

I love animals, and I oppose cruelty to them, but I have an ingrained respect for and appreciation of the ways of rural life in Northern Ireland. Severe animal welfare issues in a variety of circumstances, including torture of animals by humans, are ignored and not policed, and the Bill does not cover them. There is a fundamental issue here with how animal welfare issues are policed. The police's inconsistent approach on such issues is a serious concern, and I agree with Robbie Butler that the Bill needs to be more precise.

I am concerned for what the Bill may mean for the 400,000 dog owners across Northern Ireland. I have serious concerns about the Bill: how it is drafted; its direct and unintended consequences; its effect on rural life; its vilification of hunting and dog owners; and the costs that it will impose on the PSNI in delivering its services, especially in rural communities.

Mr Brett: I warmly welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. It has been an example of the best of the Assembly, with Members passionately arguing for the causes that matter to them and their constituents. I speak as someone who has taken considerable interest in animal welfare and as a member of the Assembly's all-party group on animal welfare. I also do so with a degree of personal reflection. The Member for South Antrim and I do not sit on the same Bench, nor do we always agree, but, in our previous life in local government, we worked together on important animal welfare issues, and I was delighted that he and I were able to ensure the banning from council property of circuses that use wild animals. That was the right thing to do then, and engaging seriously with the Bill is the right thing to do now.

Let me be clear from the outset that I wholeheartedly support the principle of the Bill. I do so because Northern Ireland can no longer be an outlier in the United Kingdom when it comes to the hunting of wild mammals with dogs. We should not be behind England, Wales or Scotland on a basic question of animal welfare. Hunting an animal for fun or defending that practice simply because it is tradition is not acceptable in a modern society. Traditions matter; rural life matters; countryside communities matter; but no tradition is beyond moral scrutiny. Where a practice involves cruelty, suffering or the deliberate pursuit of wild animals for sport, the Assembly has a responsibility, today, to say, "That is wrong".

That is the central issue at the heart of the Bill. It is not whether we respect the countryside; of course we do. It is not whether farmers have the right to protect livestock; of course they do. It is not whether there are legitimate issues of pest control, conservation and land management; of course there are. The central question is whether the deliberate hunting of wild mammals with dogs for entertainment should continue to be lawful in Northern Ireland. My answer to that question is that it should not. It is morally wrong and is out of step with public expectations, with modern animal welfare standards and with where Northern Ireland should be. For too long, animal welfare here has been behind. We have seen that in debates on puppy farming, enforcement sentencing, rehoming and the ability of people convicted of animal cruelty to own or keep animals in the future.

The public expect better. They expect the Assembly to act when cruelty is identified. They expect us not to merely condemn cruelty with words but to legislate where legislation is required. That is why the Bill matters. It matters because it asks us whether we are prepared to draw a clear line and whether we are willing to stand up for animal welfare and ensure that Northern Ireland does not lag behind the rest of the United Kingdom. It matters because it asks whether tradition should be allowed to excuse a practice that, in my view, the majority of the people of Northern Ireland now regard as outdated.

However, supporting the principle of the Bill does not mean that the Bill is perfect. It is not. I want to be fair and clear about that. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered and legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. Mr Frew has very well articulated many of them. We need to ensure that farmers can continue to protect livestock; that humane and necessary pest control can continue where required; that lawful shooting, working dogs and legitimate countryside activity are not caught up in unintended consequences; and that enforcement is practical, proportionate and resourced. Those are not minor matters; they go to the workability of the legislation. They matter to farmers, landowners, dog owners, rural communities, enforcement bodies and animal welfare organisations alike. However, those concerns are exactly why the Bill should proceed to detailed scrutiny. They are not reasons to reject the principle of the Bill; they are reasons to improve the Bill. Second Stage is about principle. The principle before us is whether Northern Ireland should continue to allow wild animals to be hunted with dogs for sport. I believe that the answer to that question is no.

I recognise that some people will see this debate as a clash between urban and rural life, but it should not be framed that way. Many people in rural communities care deeply about animal welfare, many farmers have a profound respect for animals and the land, and many people who live and work in the countryside have a practical understanding of management, conservation and responsible land stewardship. The debate should not become an anti-farmer, anti-rural or anti-countryside debate; it should be about drawing a clear and moral legal line between necessary, humane animal management and the pursuit of wild animals for sport. That is the distinction that I make with the Bill. We can support farmers and still oppose cruelty, we can respect rural life and still say that hunting for entertainment is wrong, and we can protect legitimate countryside activity and still support the principle of the Bill.

The Bill needs further work. The exemptions, definitions and evidential threshold must be made clear, along with the guidance for enforcement bodies. I believe that the proposer of the Bill will work constructively with those who are genuinely interested in clarifying, improving and strengthening legislation. That is how good law is made. However, there is a clear difference between those who raise practical concerns in good faith and those who seek to sow confusion in order to prevent any change from taking place at all. Legal opinions can be commissioned for a wide variety of issues. They tend to give the answer to the question that the questioner, and those who are paying for the legal advice, are seeking. Genuine scrutiny should be welcomed, and genuine concerns should be listened to, but confusion should not be used — I will not allow it to be — as a tactic to block progress on the issue. If Members or stakeholders believe that there are areas of the Bill that need to be clarified, the right response is to engage with the Committee process, propose amendments — given Mr Frew's record to date on the issue of amendments, I have no doubt that there will be many coming forward — and test the drafting to improve the legislation. The wrong response is to exaggerate uncertainty, create fear or pretend that any imperfection in the Bill is a reason to oppose it. We should be clear: the need for further work is not an argument against the principle of the Bill, it is an argument for us all to do our job properly.

If the Bill passes this stage, I will expect the Committee to take evidence from welfare organisations, farmers, landowners, rural organisations, veterinary voices, enforcement bodies and those with experience of how similar laws have operated in England, Scotland and Wales. We should learn from other jurisdictions, not simply copy and paste. Where loopholes have existed elsewhere, we should close them. Where enforcement has been difficult elsewhere, we should improve the drafting.

Where legitimate rural activity needs to be protected, we should do so plainly in the Bill.

I also want to address the argument that tradition should carry divisive or decisive weight in this discussion. I understand that traditions form a part of identity, culture and community, but the Assembly has a duty to address practices by the standards of today, not simply by the habits of the past. There is a difference between respecting rural heritage and defending cruelty. There is a difference between protecting legitimate countryside activity and allowing the deliberate pursuit of animals for entertainment. The Bill, if properly amended and scrutinised, should be capable of making that distinction.

Some will say that we have bigger priorities, including health, education, the economy and front-line public services. Of course we do. Every Member in the House deals with those issues every day, but caring about hospital waiting lists does not mean that we cannot also care about animal cruelty. Caring about the economy does not mean that we cannot also care about welfare standards.

A society is judged not only on how it treats people but on whether it is prepared to prevent avoidable cruelty. That is what this comes down to: avoidable cruelty. No one is saying that farmers should be left unable to protect livestock. No one is saying that genuine pest control should be impossible. No one is saying that rural communities and their traditions should be ignored. What we are saying is that the deliberate pursuit of wild mammals with dogs for entertainment should now end. We are saying that Northern Ireland should no longer stand apart from the rest of our United Kingdom on basic animal welfare issues. We are saying that tradition is not a sufficient defence for cruelty. We are saying that the proper way to deal with legitimate concerns is to improve the Bill, not to block it from progressing. The question today is not one of whether every clause is perfect. The question is one of whether the principle is right, and I believe that it is. I believe that Northern Ireland should no longer be an outlier on these islands; I believe that hunting wild mammals with dogs for fun is morally wrong; and I believe that tradition alone is no longer a defence for cruelty. There needs to be a balanced approach, and my approach is to support the principles of the Bill: to end cruelty and protect legitimate countryside activity, ensuring that Northern Ireland no longer falls behind the rest of the United Kingdom. I will be supporting the passage of the Bill today.

Mrs Guy: I am pleased to support the legislation, and, from the outset, I commend my colleague John Blair for his commitment and determination in introducing the Bill. It is a testament to John's sincerity and persistence that, after the disappointment of the previous mandate, he has persevered with the issue.

In my contribution today, I particularly want to give a voice to local campaigners in my constituency and across Northern Ireland: farmers, landowners and rural residents who are clear and determined in their support of the legislation. Those are people whom I relate to. I was asked by one whether I was a country person myself, and the answer is yes. I grew up in the country and live today in a rural part of Lagan Valley. Growing up, our family farm had encounters with local hunts trespassing on our land, so I understand authentically these perspectives. I feel that it is a privilege to give voice to those campaigners today. At this point, I acknowledge the advocacy of the formidable Christine Bailey and her husband, William, who represent the Concerned Residents Ardtanagh Group, along with residents from Shanrod and Fedney. I thank everyone involved with these campaigns who took the time to write to me, to speak to me and to share deeply personal experiences in support of the Bill.

I want to make something absolutely clear: the people whom I spoke with were quick to voice that they oppose hunting with dogs because they believe that it is objectively cruel. When something is cruel, you do not simply think it but you feel it. The very idea of an animal being pursued until exhausted, cornered, terrified and, ultimately, torn apart by dogs is something that many people instinctively recoil from. It cannot be justified as entertainment; it cannot be softened by euphemisms; and, in 2026, it should not continue in Northern Ireland.

Importantly, those whom I spoke with wanted me to challenge any narrative that this debate is somehow urban versus rural or an attack on countryside life. These are authentic rural voices of farmers, landowners and families who live and work in the countryside every day. One farmer said to me, just last night: "This is the first time in a long time someone has listened to us". They are clear that organisations such as the Countryside Alliance do not speak for all rural people. The concerns that they raised with me go beyond animal welfare alone. They spoke of trespass on private land. One farmer described an incident when five reseeded fields were trampled over by a hunt that had no permission to be on the land. Others told of damage to hedgerows, land and fences, with gates left open, risking livestock escaping. All were clear: they do not want or welcome huntsmen, horses or hounds on their land.

Impact on livestock is a key concern for farmers. Impacts range from disturbing sheep during lambing season to one farmer telling me about 15 terrified heifers being cut to pieces having run through barbed wire to escape hounds. The same farmer told of another cow sustaining a broken leg. One of the most upsetting scenarios relayed to me was that of a family pet being mauled to death. The incident happened three years ago but the lady who recalled it was clearly reliving what was a deeply traumatic event for her and her family. She said that a group of men on foot with about 20 dogs descended on the area. The family heard a commotion in the yard only to be met by the sight of two large hounds that had picked up the scent of the family cat, a rescue animal with limited mobility, that was killed. It was, in the words of the pet owner, just blood lust. They tried to have charges brought but the law, ultimately, failed them.

Another aspect of that incident, and one raised by others, is intimidation. Rural residents caught up in confrontations with groups out hunting report threats and verbal abuse, including incidents when women and children were subjected to threats and aggression connected to hunting activity. That is not countryside management or respecting rural communities. It is a small number of people imposing their pastime on animals, and on landowners and local residents who did not ask for or consent to it. That is why the Bill matters.

Let me be clear about what the Bill does and does not do. The Bill contains exemptions for genuine pest control, livestock protection, disease prevention, biodiversity management and the relief of animal suffering. Those are practical and necessary provisions. What the Bill rightly targets is organised hunting with dogs, trail hunting using animal-based scents, participation in organised hunts, and terrier work. Those practices belong to another age, and the law should not maintain loopholes that permit cruelty. The Bill removes the grey areas and makes clear that cruelty dressed up as tradition is still cruelty.

I urge Members to support the Bill today, and through every legislative stage, and to resist attempts to weaken it through amendments. I want MLAs to stand with rural residents, farmers and landowners, who no longer want those practices imposed on their land or their communities. Northern Ireland now has an opportunity to say clearly that that practice belongs in the past. I hope that we take it.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mrs Guy: Go ahead before I finish.

Mr Frew: Thank you. Will the Member accept that the scenario that she painted of the cat being ripped apart would mean that she would have to amend the Bill to get protections for pets, as far as I can see? I do not know that a cat would be a wild mammal. Maybe we could get clarification on that, and maybe the Member would be minded to amend the Bill to protect pets.

Mrs Guy: I am happy to respond to that. What we are doing at Second Stage is considering the principles of the Bill. The Member raised a number of concerns about the Bill. Those will, rightly, be worked out at Committee Stage and dealt with at Consideration Stage. I think that everybody who wants to see a good piece of legislation will be more than open to doing that.

Mr O'Toole: I will speak briefly at this stage of the Bill. This is the Second Stage of a Bill, a version of which we debated in the previous mandate. I commend the Bill sponsor, John Blair, who, it has to be said, has been consistent. I was going to say dogged but that would qualify as an extremely inappropriate and cringe-worthy pun. He has been diligent and consistent on the issues and on his Member's Bill. I welcome the Bill being before the House today, and I commend him for bringing it forward.

Lots of interesting comments have been made. It has been a genuinely interesting debate. It is a subject that provokes great passion because people are passionate about animal welfare and the idea of cruelty being inflicted on wild animals for sport and entertainment but also because people are passionate about what they see as traditional pursuits and, indeed, routine and sometimes necessary practices in the countryside.

Let me be clear, however, that the Bill does not intend to outlaw — the Bill sponsor can intervene if this is not correct — the routine and necessary control of vermin, protection of biodiversity or necessary stewardship of the land. Rather, it is about preventing something that inflicts immense cruelty on wild animals, which is using dogs to hunt, attack and kill them. It is not about outlawing all forms of hunting. Some Members, from one side of the House in particular, have sought to conflate what is in the Bill with an attack on all forms of land management and, indeed, hunting. That is simply not what is in the Bill.

Phillip Brett put it well when he said that there is not and does not have to be a distinction made between the urban and the rural. Indeed, were such a distinction to be posited, it would be utterly fraudulent. Members talked about the many people from rural areas who are increasingly frustrated at and, indeed, appalled by the excesses of hunting with dogs and the use of dogs for hunting purposes. I also know some urban people who engage in country pursuits, and there is nothing wrong with that. The Bill, however, is a response to increased public pressure and public concern about the use of dogs to hunt and inflict great pain on wild animals. It is not an attempt to prohibit all forms of species control or all forms of hunting. It could not be that — if it were, it would not be before the Assembly — so it is important not to conflate those things.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: I will in one second.

I represent an urban constituency and make no apology for doing so. After the next election — Kate Nicholl has left the Chamber, and I do not know whether another Member for South Belfast is here — the constituency will be a lot more rural, because it will become South Belfast and Mid Down. I grew up in the countryside of south Down — that was until my teenage years, when we moved into town — so the binary of urban/rural is, particularly on this island, often a false one. Most of us do not have to go far back in time to find people who lived their lives, wholly or in part, in agriculture, on the land or in other rural settings. I grew up among fields, and East Down Hunt often trampled through fields nearby. Sometimes people supported that, and sometimes they were certainly not supportive of it. It is therefore to create a false dichotomy to say that it is an urban/rural point.

When I stand up and talk, as you may do, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, about public transport in Belfast or the state of Belfast city centre, I encourage all my rural counterparts to do the same. There is no prohibition on anyone talking about any issue that affects any part of the North.

I will now give way to Paul Frew.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for accepting the intervention. Perhaps he was not in the Chamber when his colleague the Member for Mid Ulster Patsy McGlone raised serious concerns about the provisions for hunting with guns, given that an owner's guns could be confiscated if they were to be investigated for, or charged with, a crime under the Bill. Does he not share his colleague's concerns?

Mr O'Toole: Patsy talked about his interest in the area. He has been involved in country sports for a long time and is passionate about them. As I said at the beginning, the Bill, by definition, is not about clamping down on or preventing all country pursuits: not at all. Patsy set out specific questions that the mere fact of the Bill's going to Committee Stage will enable to be scrutinised and interrogated. Patsy and others, including, I think, Áine Murphy, said that there are people who hold firearm licences who want answers to specific questions. Those are legitimate questions that can be answered, and I am sure that the Bill sponsor will be more than happy to deal with them during the Bill's scrutiny stage. That is what the legislative process is all about, but perhaps we have become unfamiliar with that in this place because we spend so much of our time debating non-binding motions. I have no difficulty saying that I do not think that we should compromise all forms of species control or all forms of hunting. Mr Frew went so far as to mention fishing —.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr O'Toole: I will in a second. Using dogs to inflict great pain on animals in this way is not just outdated; it is immoral. I could show you my inbox: there are messages from many people in this society, from all backgrounds, who agree with me on that. That is why they support the principles of the Bill and want us to support them.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. The Member made light of some of the contributions from Members from across the House who have legitimate concerns relating to wider hunting activity given the provisions in the Bill. Does he not accept that it would be negligent of us, as a democratically elected Assembly, not to air those concerns and ensure that the unintended consequences that his party colleague Patsy McGlone outlined do not materialise?

Mr O'Toole: I do not know at what point you heard me say that anything should be made light of. I did not say that at all. I would like you to go back to the Hansard report and to, please, tell me where I made light of anything. I literally said that those are questions to be interrogated. Any question raised that has its basis in fact or the everyday experience of people who are involved in country pursuits — particularly, it is important to say, farmers — has to be interrogated. Mr Butler is not in the Chamber at present, but I am sure that the AERA Committee will do that. As Phillip Brett said, however, those need to be on substantive concerns. I am sure that there will be specific substantive questions that need to be asked, but there will also be attempts, as with all legislation, to find ways to hold up, stall or question the legislation or to cast a shadow over even the idea of legislating in this area. That is a perfectly legitimate but, I think, fairly well-known strategy for delaying legislation. Where there are specific substantive concerns that can be evidenced, they should be brought to the Committee and unpacked. By all means, amendments can then be tabled, and those amendments, in turn, can be interrogated and scrutinised.

The principles of the Bill reflect where we are in 2026 and the great and growing desire to protect animal welfare and do everything that we can to minimise and limit the unnecessary suffering of animals. Some of the Members opposite spoke as if there were a desire to outlaw the laws of nature and animals taking one another's lives, which, obviously, happens every minute of every day across this island. It is not about that. It is about clamping down specifically on the infliction of great and unnecessary pain on wild animals for the purpose of sport. There is a large and growing opinion that is set on outlawing that, and that is why we support the principles of the Bill.

I missed Mr Blair's opening remarks, but I think that he helpfully referenced the fact that, in Scotland, there had not been a single prosecution for dog-walking by equivalent law —.

Mr Blair: Nor in England.

Mr O'Toole: That is an important precedent. I am sure that Members will want to interrogate the example in Scotland. Similar debates are happening south of the border as well.

I will say, however, that we have to apply a reasonableness test, just as the police and the Public Prosecution Service apply a reasonableness test when they police and prosecute these incidents. We should sit down and ask ourselves how realistic it is that a dog owner walking in, to pick two areas at random, since people have talked about the urban/rural divide, Ormeau Park or Drumglass Park, would have a dog that saw and then attacked a squirrel. Sadly, it is more likely that the squirrel would be grey than red. Would the dog owner be prosecuted? Would the PSNI go after them? Would they be hauled in front of the court? On the basis of what is in the Bill, I simply do not think that that would happen. I do not think that the Bill provides for that, and I do not think that it would anywhere near meet a reasonableness test for police and prosecutors. We have to be honest, therefore, and live in the realms of reality. Those questions can be properly interrogated and scrutinised at Committee Stage, and that is what will happen, assuming the Bill passes its Second Stage today.

Mr Harvey: No one in the Chamber will be in any doubt about the importance placed on this issue by the Member whose name the Bill bears. Many of us will recall the first iteration of the Bill, which had its Second Reading in December 2021. Whilst many of the key procedural issues that were the subject of concern then have now been addressed, the core contentions remain. It is undoubtedly an emotive issue for many, and I have received a significant amount of correspondence relating to the Bill. I have always sympathised, to a degree, with the Member's overall motivation and general intent on the issue. Whilst I do not support the concept of the recreational hunting of mammals with dogs purely for human gratification, I am unable to support the Bill as I have fundamental concerns about its drafting and the burden that its intended and unintended consequences would create. When considering the Bill, I found the opinion of John Larkin KC, which was published by the Countryside Alliance, to be particularly useful in crystallising the key areas of concern.

I turn first to the broad and overtly ambiguous nature of much of the Bill's drafting. My principal concern relates to the real-world implications that the Bill could have. Many of those implications may not be the intention of the Bill, but, nonetheless, they appear to be facilitated in its drafting. Clauses 1 and 2 risk criminalising ordinary and unintended behaviour involving dogs. Clause 1 defines hunting expansively to include:

a wild mammal. The offence of participating in hunting extends to another activity during which:

Mr Larkin KC argues that the Bill could capture activities, such as dog walking, shooting, drag hunting, falconry or rescue operations, where a dog unexpectedly chases wildlife, regardless of the intent, and I am of a similar view. Whilst attempts have been made to provide clarity and assurance on some of those matters in the accompanying explanatory and financial memorandum, the courts will interpret the wording of the legislation, not the content of an explanatory and financial memorandum.

I am concerned that the Bill will seriously undermine lawful wildlife management and rural land practices. The two-dog limit that is set in clause 7 has been called into question. The prohibition of the use of dogs below ground in clause 3 would potentially criminalise established terrier work, which is essential for fox control. That would create uncertainty around common farming situations involving barns, drains, stone piles and bales. The intended prohibition of trail hunting, provided for in clause 10, appears to be so widely drafted as to prohibit the use of dogs for vermin control. It is also worth noting that the Bill omits the exemptions that are found in existing Scottish legislation, which relate to game shooting, stalking and falconry. It appears that those elements could be encompassed in the outworkings of the Bill.

The Bill suffers from a lack of definition, which should cause concern to many in the House, particularly when that definition pertains to a criminal offence. Farmers and landowners will require legal certainty should the Bill be enacted, particularly in light of the potential for vexatious complaints to be made against them. As it stands, the Bill does not provide that certainty. For instance, the Bill's proposed exemptions at clauses 7 to 9 have been widely criticised as failing to provide meaningful protection in many ordinary farming and countryside situations. The House has a duty to the individual citizen to make it abundantly clear which activities will be criminalised and which will not. I fail to see that clarity in the key elements of the Bill, as presented at Second Stage.

The enforcement that flows from the Bill will not be devoid of difficulties either. The proposed penalty of up to five years' imprisonment for participation in hunting or trail hunting is wholly disproportionate and well in excess of the penalties outlined in any existing wildlife legislation. Despite my sympathy for the Member's principal motivation, I am of the view that the Bill as drafted would make for bad legislation. For that reason, I am unable to support the Bill at Second Reading.

Mr Martin: For transparency, I have a firearms certificate licence for, among other things, vermin control. However, in the time that I have had said licence, I have depleted the pest population of Fermanagh and south Tyrone by just three pigeons and two rabbits. That is probably over an eight-year period, and it is not because I am a particularly bad shot, but because I do not get a chance to use it very much.

Much of the debate has been around the ethics. I will dwell on that for a second. Most of us in the Chamber are meat eaters. I find this a sobering process. My personal ethics demand that, if I shoot something, I eat it. I am not sure how many meat eaters in the Chamber have ever prepared their own meat, but, if you are sitting here on your phone — doomscrolling or something — I suggest that you consider that, because we buy our meat from Tesco or Lidl and it is in those little pre-packaged containers. If you shoot a pigeon, you have killed it with your own hand, but taking the feathers off, taking off some pigeon breast and putting it in a pan is quite a process. Perhaps there are vegetarians watching the debate thinking, "What on earth is that DUP MLA on about?", but I have had plenty of vegetarians come to me saying that knowing where our food comes from is important to them. Shooting, prepping and cooking your own food will be the most ethical meat that you will ever eat.

I have been conflicted on the issue. I have spoken at several rallies in support of greater protection for animals and clearly against the inhuman and cruel treatment that has been inflicted on them. In my view, foxes are incredibly beautiful animals; in fact, I would go so far as to say that foxes are majestic. However, as has been pointed out, they remain pests, and they must be controlled. They have a God-given natural kill instinct. A friend of mine described what happened when a fox got into his henhouse. He described it as a scene from the movie 'Saw'. If you have not seen it, I do not necessarily suggest that you go out and watch it, but I will summarise it for you. There is a lot of blood, although, I am sure, fewer feathers than there were in my friend's henhouse. Foxes devastate livestock. I have agreed with much of the commentary that we have heard today regarding ground-nesting mammals and the propensity of foxes to eat the eggs and limit the number of birds, especially rare birds, that we have. Foxes need to be controlled; they need to be shot to save other mammals. However, they do not need to be hunted down with dogs.

I have heard only one other Member speak about trail hunting; I think it was Áine across the way, right at the start. I was not in the Chamber for that; I came down later. I happen to support trail hunting. The fox is not hunted or killed by dogs. It is already dead — it has usually been shot as part of pest control by a farmer — and is provided to a hunt, and that dead fox is dragged for its scent. My issue with fox hunting is not the people putting on red coats and going across fields, if that is what they want to do, but with the kill, although, as others have pointed out, animals can die at the hands of other animals in nasty ways.

If the Bill passes its Second Stage today, which, I expect, it will, it should receive high scrutiny at Committee level. My colleagues, Paul Frew from North Antrim and Phillip Brett behind me, highlighted a range of questions. The AERA Chair is not here, but the AERA Committee should take on board the comments and concerns of all in the Chamber as it is ironed out. As colleagues have said, the Second Stage debate is about policy intent and principle. It is at the third and fourth stage that the details of what the Bill will entail will be ironed out to make it the best Bill possible. I particularly encourage the proposer of the Bill to look at how best we can protect what has been described in the Chamber as a "rural lifestyle".

I have been lobbied considerably, on both sides of the debate, by constituents. However, my office staff have informed me that I have seemingly managed to do the impossible for an MLA: annoy constituents who support and those who oppose the Bill. It is quite a skill level for an MLA to somehow get on the wrong side of both groups on the issue, and that is perhaps because of my slightly nuanced stance. That has been my experience.

Nearly every time I enter the Chamber, I have a pretty clear view about what I should do and how I should vote. I have not had such clarity on this issue, and I have spent the last week, particularly the weekend, rolling the issue around in my head. I even had my three children give me some feedback on the issue at various times over the weekend. However, I am extremely grateful to my party for giving each of us a free vote, recognising it as a conscience issue and recognising the fact that my colleagues and I, as has been evidenced today, have a range of views on the issue. Today, I will support the sponsor's Hunting with Dogs Bill, but I ask him to take on board the views of those who do not support the Bill and do not agree with everything that is proposed. We should try our best to make the Bill, if it passes this stage, fit for purpose for the 21st century.

Mr Wilson: I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I have spent some time considering the issue, and it raises many questions and scenarios that have caused considerable concern in the countryside of Northern Ireland.

The Bill is unwieldy, and it is far from clear what its implications would be, given the commentary and timely warnings from senior legal figures in Northern Ireland, such as the former Attorney General John Larkin. I commend organisations such as the Countryside Alliance and the BASC, of which I am a member, for their attention to the Bill and all its implications. I also recognise the high level of contact from rural dwellers, who, likewise, have raised their concerns. There is a real and prevailing fear that the legislation would create the possibility of criminalising any dog owner who has no intention of seeing any animal killed and that, under the Bill, through no fault of their own, they could face prosecution. That would be disastrous.

Let me be clear: I have no wish to see any animal suffer needlessly. I do not believe that anyone in the House has such a wish; indeed, everyone wants the highest animal welfare standards to be exercised regardless of the scenario. The control of vermin is no different. However, it is clear that there are many in the House who also understand the countryside and the fact that effective control of vermin is essential. That takes on many forms and formats and is done by many methods, all with the sole purpose of protecting our important habitats and our agri-food industry from the over-proliferation of various listed vermin species. While there is some recognition of that fact in the Bill through some minor exemptions, it is, by its construction, so complicated and convoluted that I pity anyone who is seeking to ensure that they are on the right side of the law were the Bill to receive Royal Assent in its current form. It also follows that it would be an absolute legal and resource-guzzling quagmire for the PSNI and, indeed, those in the justice system generally, who undoubtedly would be tasked with trying to make sense of such a complicated Bill in practice. Our PSNI officers and, indeed, our courts are overwhelmed and under-resourced, and the Bill would needlessly add to that workload.

When considering the Bill, we must note the fact that anyone out in the countryside with their dog could be criminalised. A dog has, by all accounts, an ability to act on its own instincts and accord and could chase or follow a scent. It is preposterous that that very act could end up criminalising a dog owner, yet that is highly possible under the proposed legislation in its current format. It therefore goes without saying that, on that point alone, the Bill should be rejected. While Mr Blair will say that that is not the intention of the Bill, he will, hopefully, also have read the concerns of the former Attorney General and will understand my concerns for dog owners up and down the country who have been in contact with me and are deeply concerned about the clear overreach of the proposed legislation.

I am deeply concerned about the impact on landowners. The Bill has the ability to criminalise not only the dog owner or those present but, most worryingly, a landowner or occupier. Whilst the word "knowingly" is included — presumably, meaning a clear intent — the wide-ranging implications are stark. It could easily be argued and most likely will be the case that hunting could take place on land when the owner did not know nor give consent for hunting with a dog or that land could be accessed when no communication has taken place. Land could be accessed by a dog inadvertently, given that a dog has a mind of its own and often does not follow a command. Would those landowners be similarly held responsible? Who would decide whether a person involved in the outlawed description of hunting with dogs had argued that permission had been given when no permission had been given? What weight —?

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way on a good point. We have the penalties here. They include 12 months in prison and fines not exceeding £20,000, which is excessive. Does the Member know whether, if the person, occupier or landowner is guilty of an offence, they could be liable to a £20,000 fine? If that is the case, no landowner in the country would give consent to hunting on their land.

Mr Wilson: Absolutely. I agree with the Member. That is where it opens up or, rather, closes down legitimate hunting with guns. There is that risk when a dog, a number of dogs or, as I have seen on many an occasion, more than one person with a dog is out hunting on a large expanse of territory that is owned by an individual landowner.

What weight is given to the word "permit"? How is permission to be tested and validated, and what weight is to be given to the test? I am sure that there are instances when hunting activity accesses lands and owners are not content with it and, regardless of a request to leave, those involved do not leave. Who decides the remedy in such instances? Look at the proposed sentencing regime for that example. It is absurd that someone who is involved in trail hunting, which involves no real, living animal, can receive a justice outcome that is of far greater severity than that received by someone who kills or otherwise takes a protected species under the Wildlife and Natural Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011. That is not advancement of animal welfare but a backward step legislatively.

Many other elements of the Bill raise considerable concerns. However, I am hopeful, despite what I have heard, that the House understands that the outworkings of the Bill, if it were to be implemented, would create such confusion, fear, resource pressure and, no doubt, wrongful prosecutions that it should be rejected at this stage.

Mr Kingston: It is an important issue. I welcome the fact that my party has permitted a free vote on the matter. I thank all the groups that have written to me both in support of and against the Bill and all the individual constituents who have written, no doubt, to most of us, many sending a standardised campaign email either for or against the Bill.

The matter hinges on what we consider to be nature, what is considered to be acceptable forms of hunting and pest control and what should be considered to be unacceptable cruelty. Of great importance to me, as I have already stated in an intervention to the sponsor of the Bill, is the need to respect the right of farmers to protect their livestock, such as poultry and lambs, which are vulnerable to predators, such as foxes, and the right to use a dog in that protection. It is also important to respect the existence of traditional rural activities and country sports, including shooting, many of which, we are told, would not be prevented by the passing of the Bill. That needs to be tested.

When it comes to people who go into country areas and set terriers or other dogs into badger setts, foxholes or rabbit holes for some sort of enjoyment — I have spoken to people who take part in that activity and enjoy it — I consider that to be unacceptable cruelty both to the dogs and the wild animals.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Kingston: I will give way.

Mr Buckley: As a point of clarity, will the Member accept that, on the issue of badgers, that is an illegal activity that has no place in society and that the police challenge it robustly, as they should?

Mr Kingston: I welcome the legislation that exists. If more is needed to prevent that activity, I would support that. At election time, I have spoken to people who would justify that activity and have told them, "I do not agree with you and I do not seek your vote if that is what it hinges on".

Animal welfare matters. Gratuitous cruelty should be prevented. I accept the need to tighten legislation. I share the concerns about the potential consequences of the Bill for dog owners, farmers, country sports enthusiasts and those engaging in legitimate pest control and, from time to time, in the necessary culling of species such as deer, minks, foxes and badgers using dogs. I am also concerned about the scale of the prison sentences proposed in the Bill.

The decision before us today is whether we consent to the Bill's progressing to Committee Stage to undergo wider consultation and for the opportunity to clarify, improve and amend it. I am content to support the Bill's progress to that stage.

Mr Buckley: Today, I speak as an MLA who unashamedly represents a predominantly rural constituency. I speak as someone who has been involved in a rural way of life since my inception, as were my father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, which is something of which we are extremely proud. I speak as a committed conservationist and as someone who sees and values man and woman's participation in managing our countryside and all that is beautiful in it. I speak as someone with a deep sense of responsibility to the people who depend on our land, our wildlife and our rural traditions for their livelihood and, indeed, way of life.

As a boy, I was reared beside dogs. My family have kept dogs all their life. Dogs are among the most appreciative, kind and caring animals; in fact, they are man's best friend, as we have all rightly seen in times past. My father taught me, as his father taught him, to have a deep sense of respect for the rural way of life and how to manage the countryside. That is why I cannot support the Bill's Second Stage today.

Mr Blair: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: I will in just a moment.

Today, I have listened to how Members have degraded and devalued members of the rural community who have participated in lawful hunting activity, all with a genuine and deep sense of value for the land. I have listened to Members demonstrably mischaracterise their activity and their intent. My fear is that, if the Bill should pass, it will do just that.

On that note, I will give way to the Bill sponsor.

Mr Blair: I am grateful to the Member for giving way. Before he proceeds, I ask him to clarify something for me. I will refer later to the generalisations that have filtered through today's debate. Will he agree that he does not represent every view in the rural area, where views on hunting with dogs, animal cruelty, fox hunting and an entire range of other issues differ? There is diversity of opinion in rural areas. He does not represent all of that opinion, and nor do I. We should acknowledge that.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Bill sponsor for his intervention. Of course I do not speak for the entirety of the rural community. I do not speak for the entirety of my party. I do not speak for the entirety of Members in the House. Nor does Mr Blair, but it is Mr Blair who has introduced a Bill that will dictate the terms for all of those who participate in hunting. I have not introduced a Bill to put a blanket ban on hunting activity across Northern Ireland. That is what the Bill will achieve, however.

When I spoke on a variation of this Bill in 2021, I acknowledged that I did not think that Mr Blair or the Alliance Party had malicious intent or a hidden agenda when it came to hunting activity beyond that which he sought to ban publicly, which was fox hunting.

However, from what I have seen today, and from the clause-by-clause analysis by my colleague Paul Frew from North Antrim, I am afraid that my words were misplaced. Let me be absolutely clear from the outset that the Bill is anti-rural in its design, anti-rural in its effect and anti-rural in its understanding of how the countryside works.

Mr Carroll: I thank the Member for giving way. The Member mentioned that he is a keen conservationist. I remind the Member that he is quite often one of the most vociferous voices against climate change legislation being rolled out and passed in the North, so how does he square the circle of being a conservationist but also being dead against climate legislation?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The debate is on the general principles of the Bill, which is about hunting with dogs. It is not about anything else.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. While I fundamentally disagree with the Alliance Party's policy position, I find it a bit rich to receive interventions from an individual, that is, the Member for West Belfast from People Before Profit, who literally entered the Chamber a few moments ago instead of sitting and listening to the points being debated across the Chamber.

Mr Carroll: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: I will take no further intervention. The Member will have his opportunity in due course.

I will get back to my point: it is not a Bill rooted in evidence, animal welfare or practical wildlife management. It is a Bill rooted in perception, prejudice and pressure from activist groups that neither understand nor represent rural Northern Ireland.

Animal welfare has been cited by most Members in their contributions as a key aspect and means that they want to see advanced in Northern Ireland. I do not disagree with that fundamental point. My colleague for North Belfast gave a different perspective, and he outlined some of the animal welfare issues that we are grappling with, whether it is puppy farming, an animal cruelty register or other aspects of a legitimate animal welfare policy. I will never be found wanting in advancing those arguments because, again, I go back to the basic principles that were instilled in me, which were to represent and respect country ways of life but to ensure that we have adequate animal welfare standards.

Supporters of the Bill claim that it is about animal welfare, but all peer-reviewed scientific evidence does not support that claim. I note that, when the Bill sponsor opened today's debate, he could not point to any specific peer-reviewed research or scientific evidence that showed that bans elsewhere on these islands led to better animal welfare for the quarry and mammal population that they seek to protect, and there is a reason for that.

You would think that, some 20-plus years after a Bill had been introduced in Westminster or Scotland, there would be evidence aplenty of positive animal welfare impacts, but the truth is that there is none. There has been no spend whatsoever from the anti-hunting campaign group to peer review the very ban that they imposed and how it had a positive impact on wildlife. None. Millions of pounds have been spent on propaganda and spin about a rural population that is often scorned by those who have no understanding of the countryside but now are experts. Veterinary experts, wildlife managers and conservation practitioners have repeatedly stated that controlled hunting with dogs is a legitimate and humane wildlife management tool.

I have listened to Members describe how we are a nation of animal lovers, and, indeed, we are. Our duty, however, extends to productive, sensible and legal intervention when it comes to wildlife. We often pit one against the other when debating the issue. There must be intervention to ensure a healthy, proportionate wildlife ecosystem. If we do not intervene and use the appropriate measures to ensure that we manage wildlife populations effectively, they run out of control. The Bill, however, ignores all that.

Mr Frew: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: I will.

Mr Frew: That is very important. Biodiversity is very important when there is no hierarchy of predator. When animals and mammals out there cannot be eaten or taken by other animals, man must intervene humanely and passionately to dispatch those animals.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for his intervention. What pained me most when I listened to an earlier contribution from the Bill sponsor was that he appeared to imply that dogs and their respective owners, be they in pursuit of legitimate hunting activity with guns and dogs —. I think that most people understand that gun activity is often a group activity, in which each individual has their own dog. In most cases, it is a Labrador, springer spaniel or cocker spaniel. Those people have been portrayed today as the impediment to ground-nesting species. Members, be under no illusion: it is the predator fox population and other animals that have a detrimental impact on ground-nesting birds, such as curlew, not those who legitimately partake in hunting activity.

The Bill, however, ignores all that. It ignores the peer-reviewed research and a decade of practical evidence. As I noted, it ignores the consequences of similar legislation in England, Wales and Scotland, where bans have not improved animal welfare and, in many cases, have made it worse. Were animal welfare truly our priority, we would be debating investment in enforcement —.

Mr McMurray: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: I will.

Mr McMurray: The Member is concerned about birds such as the curlew. Does the Member support nature-friendly farming?

Mr Buckley: Yes. Absolutely. I am on record as an advocate for such things, and I know many farmers who have put in place appropriate measures on their farmland to ensure that ground-nesting birds have the best chance of survival. The Member puts forward a very interesting point, because, without man's intervention to control wildlife, we would simply not have some of those endangered species.

If animal welfare were our priority, the debate would be about enforcement, education and evidence-based wildlife management, not a blunt, ill-considered ban that criminalises traditional, rural practices and does nothing to protect wildlife.

For Members who do not know: in 1972, Stormont passed the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland). It was hailed as landmark legislation at the time. The law on animal welfare permitted hunting — those two things can coexist — but also allowed for legal action to be taken against a hunt or an individual if a very specific accusation of causing unnecessary suffering was made. Unfortunately, a subsequent law did not include a similar clause. That, I argue, would have had a significant impact on animal welfare in Northern Ireland while also recognising that legitimate hunting activity is required in order to ensure that we can manage an eco-population. Perhaps, were the Bill sponsor serious about animal welfare and protecting rural ways of life, he could have put forward that position. I remember arguing that very point in 2021.

The position at DAERA is now occupied by an Alliance Minister. By means of regulation, we could have had significant animal welfare protections that, in effect, squared the circle — which, I believe, the majority of Members agree with — which is the permitting of lawful hunting activity but criminalising any attempt by anyone to cause undue suffering to animals. People will say that that is directly contradictory to any hunting activity, but that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is required in order to manage the countryside.

One of the most alarming aspects of today's Bill is the extraordinary legal risk that it creates for anybody who owns a dog. It is not just about hunting. It is not just about organised country pursuits. This Bill, as drafted, creates a pathway to prosecution for ordinary people whose dogs behave in natural, instinctive ways. Members, common sense needs to be applied. You cannot legislate against a dog's natural instinct, which is to scent, hunt and give chase. That happens day in, day out. You do not have to be a participant in an organised hunt for that to happen. Under the Bill, however, you run the risk of being criminalised. That point has been made light of by a number of Members. The strict liability included in the Bill means that that is an absolute reality.

I said that you cannot legislate against a dog's natural instinct. I have listened to how Members across the House are very keen on animal welfare, biodiversity and ensuring that the protection of wildlife is conducted in a way that meets animal welfare standards. However, just as you cannot legislate against a dog's natural instinct to hunt, scent and give chase — the title of the Bill is the Hunting with Dogs Bill — you cannot legislate against other animals, but I have not heard that point being put forward by those who are calling for a ban. Anti-hunting activists talk about the focus on hunting with dogs. An RSPCA wildlife centre study in 2018 suggested that 79·4% of wildlife kills are caused not by dogs, by men or by guns, but by domestic cats. Now, it would be ludicrous of me to advocate that we legislate to ban cats. That would be an absolutely ridiculous position to take. [Interruption.]

I am pointing out how ludicrous the Alliance Party's position is. On the one hand, it is saying that the Bill is necessary to ensure that wildlife can be humanely dispatched, but on the other hand —.

Mr Honeyford: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: No, I will not. I have watched how Mr Honeyford has sniggered and laughed throughout the debate. He has a different opinion from mine, which I respect but disagree with, but I find sniggering and laughing insulting. The vast majority of people who engage in legal hunting activity will also feel that that is deeply inappropriate.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. May I say

that, if the Members opposite had wanted to end traditional hunting with red coats and horses, they could easily have formulated a Bill that stated, "This Bill is about hunting with horses". That would have captured the traditional hunt that, those Members say, they want to end. However, they want to end more than that: they want to end the gun hunter.

Mr Buckley: The Member makes —.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Sorry, Jonathan. [Interruption.]

OK. [Interruption.]

OK.

I ask you to return to the Bill, which is on hunting with dogs, not hunting with cats. I do not say that to make a point. The Bill is not about climate change or anything else. I ask you to return to the Bill, please. Thank you.

Mr Buckley: Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will respect the fact that I have kept my remarks within the framework of the Bill, such is its large and far-reaching impact on hunting. Its definition is so broad that it takes in many aspects that need to be fully fleshed out in the debate.

I mentioned the statistic on cat kills of wildlife. The same study indicated that 0·2% of wildlife kills were by dogs. That goes to the heart of the debate. It is not my interpretation alone that the Bill will have far-reaching consequences. As has been mentioned, it is the view of one of the most respected and highly qualified KCs in the country, our former Attorney General John Larkin. He has provided detailed legal analysis of the Bill. With all due respect to the Bill sponsor, I and, indeed, many people in Northern Ireland will put much greater weight on the response of such an eminent KC than on the opinion of Mr Blair and on a vaguely worded Bill that could have such far-reaching consequences. To dismiss the analysis outright and say that it is being used as diversion could not be further from the truth. Its conclusions should give every Member —.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Jonathan, may I make a wee point? As any Member who has introduced a private Member's Bill will know, the processes are exhaustive, and drafting is done properly. I ask you to be cautious. I am not saying that you are doing this, but comparing John Larkin's expertise to the expertise here is not a comparison to be made. I ask you to continue with that in mind.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Here is my problem and why I raised such advice: much weight has been given to the Bill's explanatory and financial memorandum. It says that the Bill's intent is not to criminalise the average dog walker whose animal pursues anything from a squirrel to a rabbit or any other mammal. However, the Bill is what matters. It is the Bill's content that will either criminalise a dog owner or not. Therefore, when an eminent KC puts forward a legal opinion on such a Bill, it is worth taking time to pause and reflect. He warns that the Bill, as a number of my colleagues have outlined, is legally unsound, ambiguous in key definitions —.

Ms Bradshaw: On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. As someone who is bringing forward a private Member's Bill, it is my understanding that John has followed every part of the Standing Orders and the procedures outlined by the Speaker's Office in support of the recommendations of the Bill Office at every stage. Members from all sides of the House will introduce private Members' Bills over the next few months. It is incredibly disingenuous and discourteous for so many DUP MLAs today to try to undermine the efforts that Mr Blair has made to take the Bill forward. I ask you to refer the matter to the Speaker's Office, in order to ensure that the record reflects the fact that John has followed every single stage required of him to bring forward this private Member's Bill.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: OK. That was not a point of order, but I understand your point. I decide whether something is a point of order, not you two on the Back Bench. I am chairing the debate, not you.

I think that everybody has been patient. I have allowed a lot of crossover, and even for that to be stretched. However, I will not allow you to say that a KC's view is eminent, and for you to compare that to the view of the Bill Office here, as if that were less than. I am not having that. I am just putting that on record.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. I contend that my entire contribution has been within the confines of the Bill.

Ms Bradshaw made a point of order that was not a point of order. I recommend that she put herself on the speaking list so that she can speak eloquently in the debate about why she believes that the Bill is in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland.

I have significant sympathy with the Bill Office. Quite often, it is presented with very poor private Member's Bills that do not pass the smell test, never mind any other test.

Mr Blair: On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Will you rule — or refer this for a ruling — on whether the Member is misleading the House? The Bill Office was not presented with anything that was poorly drafted. You know, Principal Deputy Speaker — I suspect that the Member also knows this — that the Bill was not handwritten by me and then handed to the Bill Office; it was drafted with expertise and professionalism in this Building. What he has just said is a slight on those people. Perhaps it is also a slight on me, but I do not care about that. It is a slight on those people. He should withdraw that remark now.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: OK. I am going to refer that to the Speaker. I know that it was not your intention, Jonathan, but it sounded as though you were saying that the expertise here is less than that of a KC. I ask you to refrain from making such remarks. I also ask Members as much as possible not to raise points of order that are not points of order.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker, for the balanced way in which you approached those remarks. I must be hitting a nerve. I made no slight on the professionalism of the people who work in the Bill Office, but I absolutely shine a light on those who have brought forward poorly drafted legislation that could have detrimental impacts on, and unintended consequences for, the vast majority of rural householders in Northern Ireland.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. All of us in the House should expect clear definitions in a Bill. If a Bill does not contain clear definitions, we are quite within our rights to ask the proposer of that Bill why such things are not clearly defined.

Mr Buckley: Absolutely. That is one of the fundamental problems with the Bill. The Member mentioned article 23B(4), which states:

That is the only definition. That is what has caused alarm bells to ring for many Members. Hunting is much more than searching and pursuing. Dog walkers could be accused of searching and pursuing. John Larkin is quite clear about those particular parts. His opinion should be read into the record. He states:

We are told that that is not the intention of the Bill, but that is interpretation of an eminent KC. He says that, put simply, it seems to him that dog ownership would be made more burdensome, if not dangerous, if the Bill were to be enacted.

He says about the explanatory and financial memorandum:

That is why his interpretation is important. Members, as I have said, it is this blue-papered Bill and its content that we will have to live by. John Larkin talks about its potentially being in breach of fundamental legal principles and, as I have said, being capable of criminalising innocent behaviour by responsible dog owners. He highlights the fact that the definition of "hunting" in particular in the Bill is so broad that any dog that pursues a wild mammal, even unintentionally, could place its owner at risk of prosecution. He further notes that the Bill will fail to provide legal certainty, which is a basic requirement of good lawmaking. When a former Attorney General says such things, it is enough for us to sit up and take note. The Bill introduces strict liability. It removes the requirement for there to be intent and exposes ordinary dog owners to prosecution for what is natural canine behaviour.

When two of the most senior legal minds on this island sound the same alarm, the Assembly should listen. I remember when Mr Allister, the then Member for North Antrim, spoke in the Second Stage debate on the Hunting of Wild Mammals Bill. He spoke specifically about the strict liability clause. That point was not disproved in the debate, after which the Bill was defeated. Members tried to rubbish the claim of strict liability at the time, yet now we have John Larkin KC echoing that claim. One would think that those Members would have attempted to address that very matter between then and now, but that has not been done.

As I have said, the Bill has placed on the Assembly a duty to legislate on hunting with dogs. The Assembly has a duty to legislate with precision, with fairness and with respect for the rule of law. The Bill fails that test. Those who promote the Bill often speak as though wildlife simply manages itself. It does not. Farmers, gamekeepers, conservation volunteers and rural communities have been the backbone of wildlife management for generations. Many Members have commented on the need to protect farmers' ability to protect their livestock. That is a fundamental issue for any Bill to address. The Bill sponsor talked about its being included in the Bill, but anybody who fundamentally understands the countryside will understand that a farmer will often acquire the services of local huntsmen to use their expertise to ensure appropriate wildlife management of predator populations that are causing a risk to their flocks.

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way. He raises a very valid point. Should the Bill become law, if a farmer who has a henhouse that had been decimated by a fox were to go in pursuit of that fox, and it were to go on to another farmer's land, he would have to go and ask for consent to go on to that farmer's land. That landowner would know about the new legislation and the penalty involved. He would know that it was now:

The farmer could plead with that landowner all that he wanted, saying that his henhouse had been decimated, but the landowner would not grant him permission to pursue that fox because he could be liable to a £20,000 fine for allowing him to do so.

Mr Buckley: Absolutely. The Bill is an impediment to effective pest control. If any Member has ever seen the devastation caused by a fox in a controlled environment such as a henhouse —.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Jonathan.

Mr Buckley: Yes.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I remind you that this is not the wildlife management Bill; it is the Hunting with Dogs Bill. Seriously.

Mr Buckley: Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, in the Bill are the specific words "animal", "wildlife" and "management". It would be extremely wrong if I did not make reference to them in my contribution.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: You are right: you have made references to them. You are in danger of repeating yourself. That is all that I am saying.

Mr Buckley: Well, thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I will continue in line with the Bill.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I am reading it as well.

Mr Buckley: Yes, we all should read the Bill very carefully and understand its implications.
If anyone has ever seen the impact that a fox can have in a controlled environment, they will know that it is a scene of utter devastation. I have seen chicken farmers who have had their birds ravaged by a fox. The Bill would outlaw other mammals from being hunted with dogs. I point to the weasel family, including minks and stoats. I do not often talk about it in the House, but I am engaged with the pigeon fraternity. I have been a pigeon racer all my life, as were my father and grandfather. It has been something of a family tradition. I have seen, as, perhaps, have Members from an urban environment — they can correct me if I am wrong — how a stoat can enter an enclosure through the smallest of spaces and rip birds apart. Do you know what they do? They start with the head, and take the head off the shoulders. They do not kill it to eat it; they kill it for fun. Once they have killed that one, they go to the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: Under this legislation, using a simple terrier — a household terrier — to remove that predator would be deemed an illegal activity.

I will give way.

Mr O'Toole: I, too, have family members who are keen pigeon racers and pigeon fanciers, and it is important to them. What the Member is talking about would not be —.

Mr Frew: It is.

Mr O'Toole: But it is not. Members talked earlier about vermin control and pest management. The Member is repeatedly conflating any form of pest management and control of wildlife with the Bill, which specifically outlaws hunting with dogs. Is that not true?

Mr Buckley: The Member is fundamentally wrong. I will not go over the broad definitions in the Bill again for fear of repeating myself, but clause 2 would insert article 23B in the 1985 Order, which states:

Understanding how even those of the shooting fraternity operate, where two or more are gathered with two or more dogs, they are liable for prosecution under the Bill. The issue of strict liability comes into play, and we have all in the past dealt with vexatious attempts to criminalise neighbours. The Bill runs the risk of setting one rural dweller against the another, and one urban resident against a rural dweller. It is simply not fit for purpose.

The example that I gave about the stoat and the weasel population is becoming more live and recurring. It is not something that I witnessed in my first 20-odd years of life, but it has become a much more regular occurrence. It has been reported to me repeatedly, by those who engage in pigeon racing or who keep hens or ducks, that other predator populations are not being controlled effectively. The Bill would put the scud on further controlling those populations.

Another unintended consequence of the Bill that we do not talk about often enough is that people will move underground, as it were, to more sinister and illegal aspects of hunting. That is not something that I want to see. I want to see something that meets animal welfare expectations but is grounded in common sense and reality and recognises that we cannot remove ourselves from ensuring that such populations are controlled. We could do that through the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 1972. We could introduce a code of practice with an aspect relating to "undue suffering". That would recognise the need to control predator populations in the rural environment and ensure that anybody who engages in unlawful, unnecessary, cruel and evil exploits towards animals is efficiently dealt with before the law.

I mentioned the protection of ground-nesting birds and the safeguarding of livestock. Again, I know many farmers who use the expertise of the hunting fraternity to manage such livestock safeguarding. I take the points that Members raised about some hunts going over farmers' ground where they are not welcome and, in turn, in a minority of cases, causing distress to animals and to the land on which they have trespassed. We could have inserted in the 1972 Act stronger restraints on trespassing on land where a hunt is not welcome. However, some in the House try to present such cases as being in the majority; they are not. In the same way, the majority of those who partake in legal, defined hunting are not people on horseback with hounds but people from a multiplicity of professions. That needs to be taken into account.

In opening the debate, Mr Blair talked about preventing the spread of disease and, from some bizarre planet, tried to suggest that it is the dog that, by engaging in legitimate, legal activity, risks the spread of disease. That is so bizarre and so far removed from the realities of countryside life and rural management. The truth of the matter is that it is the predator populations that hunting tries to ensure is regulated and well managed; if they are not regulated, those quarry populations cause and spread animal disease. It is a different debate, but think of TB, for example: that is a wildlife problem. The same thing happens with other mammal species. I have had the unfortunate experience of encountering a fox that was so riddled with mange and other diseases that it was unable to feed its young. That is cruelty in every sense of the word, and it exists in nature. As I said earlier, however, it is for man or woman not to turn a blind eye but to exercise effective wildlife management and pest control and, indeed, management of the countryside to ensure that we have a healthy balance in nature. Whatever the quarry population, whether fox, rabbit, mink or stoat, if it is not managed, it causes devastation.

We have talked about the management of wildlife populations. The Bill would replace community-based conservation with a vacuum that will inevitably be filled with less humane, less targeted and less effective means of control. That is not progress; that is not welfare; and that is not conservation. The Bill is driven by activism, not evidence.

We must be honest about the motivation behind the Bill. The Bill has not been shaped by farmers, vets, ecologists or rural communities. It has been shaped by a particular activist group whose long-term agenda is not limited to hunting with dogs.

I note with interest Sinn Féin's position. In her contribution, Ms Murphy outlined how the Bill falls well short of what Sinn Féin expects any future legislation on hunting to pertain to. I agreed with many of the points that she raised in her contribution, but I find it staggering that anybody could back the Bill, particularly when it is so flawed. Take even the heading. I have not quite got my head around Sinn Féin's position on that yet, especially after looking at previous positions that have been held by the party, including by some in the Dáil. Matt Carthy TD has been on record as saying:

Claire Kerrane TD said:

Brian Stanley TD said:

When I listened to Ms Murphy's points, I sensed that she agreed with every one of those statements.

My contention is that the Bill is not amendable. I say that with regret. I would much rather have seen an amendment brought forward by the Minister and his Department — an office that Mr Blair's party occupies — to ensure that we had appropriate legislation that ensured respect for rural communities and made sure that their contribution was valued and their activity in rural life appreciated.

Today's debate is about hunting with dogs. When those against hunting with dogs get their way today, tomorrow it will be shooting. There are Members sighing, but those are the inevitable consequences of the legislation that they are trying to push on the House. After that comes angling —

Mr Donnelly: On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

Mr Buckley: — then any form of countryside management that does not fit their ideological world view.

Mr Donnelly: On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. It appears that Mr Buckley is extrapolating quite far from the truth of the Bill. Will you please make a ruling on that?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Bill's title is "Hunting with Dogs". We are not talking about shooting or angling. I ask that you return to the Bill.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Those were the exact comments that I made in 2021. Those remarks were not challenged by the Chair and they were received with the same sneering contempt from the Alliance Party, but they are factual. There is an attack on the rural way of life by the Alliance Party and by activists associated with it. I do not include in that description everybody who absolutely values animal welfare; I am saying that the Bill will have devastating consequences for how rural populations go about their business, how we manage wildlife and how we ensure that the countryside has the protection that it deserves.

The Assembly should not be a vehicle for the Alliance Party's ideological agenda. Would any sensible person who was genuine in their aim to improve animal welfare not look to other parts of the UK that have already banned hunting with dogs in order to assess the effects? Would that not be a reasonable first step? I have a question for the Bill sponsor, although, to be fair to him, he has left the Chamber for a glass of water or a comfort break.

I know for a fact that he has been given a copy of Charlie Pye-Smith's book, 'Rural Wrongs: Hunting and the Unintended Consequences of Bad Law'. I recommend that all Members read that book, because it is the only study of the welfare effects of the Hunting Act 2004 and its equivalent in Scotland. I was pleased to be invited to the launch of the book at Westminster. I will give way to any Member from the Alliance Party, including the Minister, who has read that book.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Jonathan, I ask you to return to the Bill. This is not a book review. I ask you to return to the Bill.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. In any debate, a Member is entitled to refer to any evidence, peer-reviewed or scientific, that supports the principles of an intended Bill or otherwise. That is exactly what I am doing.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Are you challenging me, Jonathan?

Mr Buckley: I am merely outlining why I have referred to the book.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: OK. I hear you. Move on.

Mr Buckley: OK. The book demonstrated the impact of the legislation on the rural way of life, and it showed the life of a fox, a brown hare and a red deer on Exmoor. I commented on the book when the Bill was discussed in 2021. Nobody took issue with it then; in fact, I expected the Members who advocated animal welfare to have read the book. That Bill did not meet the objectives. The book that I referenced pointed to the impact on quarry populations of the removal of legitimate hunting. To my knowledge, no Member has read that book. It stated that conditions for the quarry populations, for which I have the utmost respect, had been made considerably worse in a variety of ways and for a number of reasons. Briefly, the status of those animals has been changed by the hunting bans in England and Scotland, and a community-based conservation process was replaced by either pest control or commercial gain.

Much has been said about those who partake in shooting practices. Following the hunting ban, it became apparent in Exmoor that the quarry populations that the legislation sought to protect faced some devastating impacts. When amateur marksmen shot those animals, they ran for days with wounds. That is the consequence of bad law. That is the consequence of elected members following populist belief over scientific evidence. That is the consequence of abstaining from appropriate wildlife management. It is important to put that on the record today, because it is the only research on the post-hunting ban period, and no one can claim that a ban on hunting with dogs is categorically good for animal welfare.

The Burns inquiry in England and Wales and Lord Bonomy's review in Scotland gathered scientific evidence from across the board to assess the impact of the Acts, and they could point to no way in which animal welfare had been protected. The findings will be disputed by anti-hunt groups, but it brings me to another question: why has the Alliance Party or the lobby that it represents today not spent a single pound to demonstrate the positive animal welfare impacts of a ban on hunting with dogs? The ban has been there since 2004. Surely, it would be easy to pull together scientific evidence of the legitimate protection of the populations that it seeks to protect. Members, it does not exist. There has never been any evidence to substantiate the intent behind an outright ban on hunting with dogs.

We are here to legislate not on the basis of emotion, perception or online claims but on the basis of evidence, principle and real-world consequences of decisions that we make collectively as a body. The Bill does not improve animal welfare; it does not reflect rural realities; it does not provide legal certainty; it does not respect the rights of responsible dog owners; and it does not command the confidence of those who manage the countryside. It is bad law. It has been presented today that, on the basis of the consultation, we are to expect that this is a foregone conclusion for everybody. The consultation was responded to by 0·25%, not even a percentage point, of the Northern Ireland population. That is not a basis on which anyone can claim they speak for the entirety of a Northern Ireland community, just as I would acknowledge that I do not speak for the entirety of the rural community.

A Member: Will the Member give way?

Mr Buckley: I will, in a moment.

Mr Blair spoke in his opening remarks about the cruel practice of hunting groups towards their hounds and dogs. Mr Blair, if you have evidence of that happening in Northern Ireland — evidence of actions that are illegal and prosecutable before the law — I suggest that, instead of smearing those with a genuine love for dogs, you bring that information to the police and have those people prosecuted. I will be with you every bit of the way, ensuring their prosecution. The facts remain: anybody who has dogs for hunting purposes, be they cocker spaniels, springer spaniels, Labradors, beagles or any other type of hound, love their animals. They love their dogs. Their dogs are treated with the utmost care and attention. I have had a hound since I was no height. They were treated with love, care and affection. They have been an integral part of my family home. If I knew anybody who would dare bring harm to them, I would have them before the court of law. The suggestion made by some today that such practice is widespread is nothing short of ridiculous.

In drawing my remarks to a close, I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate, regardless of whether I agreed with them. It is fair to say that, if the Bill is to meet the tests that were outlined by the Sinn Féin Member Ms Murphy, significant amendment will be required. I will vote against the Bill, because I do not agree with its intent, its broad legal definitions or the consequences that it would impose on our rural way of life. For those reasons, I will vote against it.

Mr Gaston: The Bill is the latest assault on the countryside by the Alliance Party, be that through its intended consequences or the multiple unintended consequences that have been explored this afternoon and into this evening.
The debate has got to the stage of asking this question: is the Assembly prepared to pass vague and badly drafted legislation? It is, of course, criminal legislation with serious consequences for rural life. I have to emphasise that. We have now explored the issue in depth. Is the Assembly prepared to rubber-stamp vague and badly drafted criminal legislation and send it through to the next stage? Even this place should aspire to be better than that.

The first thing that strikes me about the Bill, as it should anyone who reads it carefully, is that it is astonishingly broad in scope. The former Attorney General for Northern Ireland John Larkin KC described it as a "confused and unnecessarily complex" Bill. Why? Let us begin with what it says about clause 1 in the explanatory memorandum:

Fair enough, but let us look at clause 2 — that is the important one — which says:

Clause 1 says:

To me, that is as clear as mud. How can anyone argue that "another activity" does not include walking your dog? I am happy to give way to the Bill sponsor if he wants to come in at any point. To me, "another activity" could mean anything to anybody, and that is why I say that the Bill is vague and badly written. I am not blaming those in the Bill Office. They have done their job and can only work with the tools that they are given, but, for goodness' sake, that is not some crazy reading of the Bill; it is what it says in black and white on blue paper.

Mr Blair: Will the Member give way?

Mr Gaston: I am happy to give way.

Mr Blair: This is the second time today that I have been challenged on the same question by Mr Gaston. I thank him for giving way. I am happy to clarify that. If he reads the paragraph that he is talking about to the end, he will see that, after "another activity", it has wording in brackets that talks about scent. It states:

That is the entire intent of the Bill, and it is explained in a short sentence. I thank the Member for allowing me to intervene, and I hope that that helps him.

Mr Gaston: I thank the Bill sponsor for trying to set that out, but, when I listen to him and hear what his intent is while, on the other hand, hearing what the former Attorney General says, whom am I to believe? If I go into court, whose evidence will I depend on? Will I go back to Hansard and say, "Oh, but, but, but the Bill sponsor said that it does not include walking with your dog", or will I take the advice of the KC whose report, Mr Blair said on the radio this morning, he has considered? He obviously has not taken that on board or done anything with it.

Time and time again today, we have heard, "Oh, but nobody in GB has been convicted", but that is not to say that nobody will be convicted. If we have a KC, a former Attorney General, saying that the Bill opens the door, that does not mean that nobody could be convicted going forward. We have already heard today about vexatious complaints. I have a big fear that people will use the Bill to make vexatious complaints, either in reporting somebody who is out walking their dog and the dog gets away or, indeed, somebody who owns a firearm, such as a neighbour whom they do not like. They could make a complaint resulting in the police coming out and lifting that person's guns because they have allegedly committed an offence under the Bill.

Let us look at what the Bill says about hunting. How does it define it? The issue has been covered in much detail. The wording under clause 2 tells us that "hunting" includes "searching for and pursuing". That is what, I believe, Mr Larkin is depending on and why he includes the example of a dog that is in the park, and it gets off its lead or its owner lets it off to exercise and it pursues a mammal. It is quite clear, in black and white, what that can mean. Mr Larkin points to the example of an elderly person who is walking her dog through a park, and the dog pursues a wild mammal in the course of another activity. That is the phrase that is used in the Bill, "another activity". I believe Mr Blair when he tells us that that is not his intention. That may be so. However, he needs to go back to the drawing board because, as I warn the House, when we have a former Attorney General pointing out the flaws in the Bill and what it could mean not just for a farmer or somebody who lives in the countryside but anybody who owns a dog, we need to heed that advice.

If you want to criminalise things, you need to be clear about what the criminal conduct is. The Bill is certainly not clear. The offence captures activities that are far beyond traditional fox hunting. That is why I say that it is broad in scope. If we are to believe the Bill sponsor about his intention behind that, why has he left the door so wide open that that could affect people who use dogs in connection with shooting? He says, "Oh no, no — that is not the intention". However, that is what the Bill allows to happen. In fact, I would argue that there is no question that, for those who go out to shoot and take a dog with them, the legislation will have an impact on their hobby and sport. If the Bill passes to Committee Stage, there will be a great deal of work to do. The Assembly should consider seriously whether, because of its drafting and how broad it is, the Bill should get beyond its current stage.

If one sends a dog into a wooded area to flush out a bird while shooting, you are using it to "search for" an animal that is "pursued". Those are the very words that are employed in the Bill, and they appear repeatedly in clauses 8, 9 and 10.

We move on to trail hunting. The wording of clause 3 on trail hunting is so sweeping that I am in receipt of correspondence from members of the rural community who argue that it could even affect farmers who use dogs to locate vermin, such as rats that live in, or under, sheds but not under the ground. The Assembly should not criminalise rural activity simply because some lobby groups dislike fox hunts and shooting as a sport or, indeed, as a method of dealing with threats to farm animals. Some of us in the House find Mr Blair's concern — and, indeed, that of the Alliance Party, which goes to great lengths to protect foxes but has no concern for the unborn in this country — [Interruption.]

When he stands up to protect foxes, I take that —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Mr Gaston, keep your remarks to the Bill.

Mr Gaston: I am happy to do that.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): You know that I will keep on telling you to keep your remarks to the Bill, so let us not play that game; just keep to the Bill.

Mr Gaston: That is OK, Mr Deputy Speaker, but you judge the person and party who brings something forward on their other actions.

I will bring it back to the Bill. The Bill appears to ignore the evidence that has been gathered by previous independent inquiries. The Burns inquiry in England, which was mentioned by Mr Buckley, and the Bonomy review in Scotland both examined those issues in detail. Lord Burns stated that the inquiry panel did not have sufficient evidence to conclude that hunting involved significantly worse welfare effects than other lawful methods of control. This is not a case of the proponents of the Bill standing up to prevent the suffering of animals while the rest of us are heartless on the issue. That is certainly not the case. The evidence is not nearly as clear-cut as Mr Blair would have us all believe.

Whether or not one likes to admit it, foxes are often a menace to farmers. Foxes are classed as vermin by a sheep farmer who is trying to protect the lambs in their field. Foxes are classed as vermin by a poultry farmer who wants to ensure that they do not come and disturb their birds. Foxes have to be controlled, but how do we control them? There is evidence that alternatives, such as shooting or snaring, produce poorer welfare outcomes than a quick kill by dogs. That is an uncomfortable fact for some campaigners and, indeed, for some in the House, but it is a fact that deserves serious consideration. Again, I observe that the Bill is so broad in its reach that it would potentially criminalise an innocent dog walker, never mind someone who shoots with dogs.

We come to the two-dog limit. We read in the Bill that it is "one or more dogs"; then, it talks about "more than two dogs". Lord Bonomy rejected the idea that two dogs are sufficient for effective flushing on rough terrain and in woodland. He made the point that a two-dog limit could prolong pursuit and reduce effectiveness. The Bill raises significant concerns regarding terrier work. Members may not like the activity, but legislation should be grounded in evidence, not sentiment. The Bonomy review concluded that there is a strong case for permitting the use of terriers below ground to complete fox control effectively and prevent further livestock damage, yet the Bill adopts a far more restrictive approach. Once again, the drafting of the Bill is unclear. The term "enclosed space" is not properly defined, as Mr Frew set out. Mr Blair, does that include barns, drains, stone piles and farm buildings? The House must interrogate such definitions.

Mr Blair: Again, I thank the Member for giving way. I hope that he knows that I am trying to be helpful here. The term "enclosed space" is a generic but inclusive term. Does the Member understand that it could include all enclosed spaces? It could be a barn, a cave, a hole in the ground or a shed. If one tried to list every possible enclosed space, one may well leave some out and create loopholes. That is probably the exact term that one is looking for, because it is a catch-all option. I hope that the Member can take that on board.

Mr Gaston: The "catch-all option". Did you hear that, Members? It is to include everything. The Bill sponsor has introduced a Bill and he is not 100% sure of the definitions, but, just to ensure that he catches all, it means all things to all people.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. That raises a considerable point: it is "a catch-all", which means all hunting activity. Does the Member agree that it is extremely worrying that, in the second —?

Mr Blair: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker —.

Mr Buckley: It is interesting that Mr Blair wants to interrupt me, but I will finish my point and —.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Gentlemen, an intervention was taken. Mr Blair, you know well that we will take your point of order after the intervention has been completed.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Deputy Speaker.

Does the Member agree that, given that this is the second iteration of a Bill introduced by the Bill sponsor, the fact that he cannot define those terms and that he says, "It could be", "might be" or "may well be" all-encompassing is a considerable worry for anybody who engages in legitimate hunting activity, and that it demonstrates why the Bill is not workable?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Mr Blair, what is your point of order?

Mr Blair: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for a Member to deliberately misrepresent my words? I intervened — I was grateful that Mr Gaston took the intervention — on a query regarding the definition and description of an "enclosed space". I did so to be helpful, and I stand over that. Mr Buckley implied that I was referring to policy and activity, which I clearly was not, and it should at least be written into the record that that was a misrepresentation of what I said, whether it was deliberate or not.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Thank you, Mr Blair. I am sure that you are fully aware that that was not a point of order, but it has been written into the record.

Mr Gaston: I do not want to misrepresent the Bill's sponsor when we talk about "enclosed spaces" in this "catch-all" approach so that we do not leave anything out. It is very telling, and it is about enclosed spaces. I get that, but there is a pattern. Earlier on, we talked about hunting and how many dogs — we were talking about a pack of hunting dogs. Now we are talking about enclosed spaces. The more that we probe, the deeper that we get into the detail of the Bill — a Bill that has been introduced, and now we are having a debate on it — the more that we see that there is a lack of clarity. When severe penalties are included in the Bill, there needs to be clarity. There should be no opportunity for wriggle room. There should be no, "Well, he thinks that, and the other person thinks the other". We need to get to a point where there is absolute clarity. I would rather that the element of "enclosed space" were left out than have a broad-brush catch-all approach. That is what concerns me about the vagueness of the Bill. Five years in prison or £20,000, and, yet, at this stage, it is a catch-all approach, and that is what we are going with in the legislation.

I return to Mr Larkin. He raised concerns regarding compatibility with article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights because of the lack of legal certainty in the offences created. When a former Attorney General raises serious concerns about legislative competence and European Convention on Human Rights compliance, the Assembly should not simply brush those concerns aside.

I will return to an issue that was not fully expanded on. When there are a number of people out individually hunting with their dogs, and if those dogs or, indeed, those shooters come together, under article 23I, they would be breaking the law:

That means that anybody who goes out shooting, such as people on stag dos, lads' weekends or whatever — take the dogs with them, go shooting — and their dog runs off and follows its natural instinct — the term in the Bill is "searching for and pursuing" — they could be liable. My goodness, is that the place that we have got to?

The final points that I want to make relate to the wider rural impact of what the Alliance Party and Mr Blair are trying to do. For many people involved in these activities, this debate is not abstract politics. It concerns farming, pest control, rural employment and long-standing community traditions. The Bill shows complete disregard for that and, in its genesis, is a party that, either through the Bill, the Minister of Justice or the AERA Minister, has shown disinterest in rural life and shown that it is so disconnected from rural life and countryside people that it simply disregards their concerns and sets them aside.

I believe that the Assembly has to think seriously about the Bill, based on the intervention of former Attorney General Mr John Larkin KC and on the raft of queries from Members. I do not believe that the Bill will be amendable when it gets to Committee Stage. Based on the grey areas and the catch-all mentality, I trust that Members will vote against it this evening.

Mr Carroll: I commend the Member for bringing the Bill to the House. It is hard work. It is not easy to do a private Member's Bill. I commend him for his work. I also take the opportunity to say that I hope that my private Member's Bill will make its passage through the House as well.

As a side comment, I suspect that, had I said half of what was said about drafters, I would have been kicked out of this place, but maybe we will leave that for another day.

As a dog walker whose dog occasionally chases a squirrel up a tree, I will not be criminalised. I have no fear of being criminalised, locked up or fined or of facing a court case because of the Bill. That was scaremongering. I was going to use the term — well, it was scaremongering.

I thank the Member for introducing the Bill. My party and I back the legislation without reservation. As has been said, England, Scotland and Wales have taken a stand against the shameful practice of hunting with dogs. I say this to the Member for Upper Bann: just because a Member is not in the Chamber does not mean that they are not listening to the debate upstairs. He knows that all too well, but he refused to allow an intervention on that basis. I will move on.

It should be regarded as a source of shame that the North is an outlier on hunting with dogs, as on many other things. The Assembly has a chance to put the practice to an end. For the majority of people and organisations that are lobbying against the Bill, hunting with dogs is not about pest control or land management; it is a blood sport with deep roots in British aristocratic culture, in which wild animals are chased to exhaustion and torn apart for the entertainment of a tiny, privileged minority. Dressing it up in the language of countryside tradition does not change that fact. It is nothing short of cruelty. I emphasise that it is a bit rich for the Members to my right, who lambast even limited forms of climate change legislation that will protect and conserve the environment, to use that language to endorse cruel hunting with animals.

Mr Buckley: Will the Member give way?

Mr Carroll: No, thanks. You did not extend that favour to me, so I will move on.

I am content that the Bill contains sufficient exemptions for the legitimate use of dogs, including hunting pests, protecting livestock and carrying out humane killing and certain management of wild mammals. That is clear in the Bill, so, again, a bit of misrepresentation has taken place today.

The fact is that an overwhelming majority of the public support the Bill. A LucidTalk poll found that 76% of people in the North want fox hunting to be banned, and those figures generally hold in rural and urban areas. The Member's consultation, as we heard, drew over 12,000 responses, which was sniffed at, but that is more than the number of responses to most ministerial consultations and consultations on private Members' Bills. Some 80% of people said in their responses that ending hunting with dogs was important to them. Members can raise different views, as they are entitled to do, but they should note those significant figures. The public have clearly spoken, and the Assembly should listen.

We should also recognise that there is no universal rural experience, which was touched on by some Members. Farmers struggling in difficult economic conditions are not the natural allies of the hunt. Many have banned hunts from their land because of biosecurity risks, damaged fences and disturbed livestock. I have been contacted, as other Members may have been, by many rural farmers who have indicated that.

Legal hunting with dogs provides cover for illegal activity, including badger baiting, one of the most sadistic practices imaginable. Scotland strengthened its legislation in 2023 and closed loopholes in the Hunting Act 2004. This Bill aims to do the same by recognising trail hunting as a smokescreen for illegal hunting. No animal should be torn apart by dogs for sport. It is time to end that barbaric, colonial practice, and I urge Members to support the Bill.

Ms Sugden: I support the Hunting with Dogs Bill passing its Second Stage. The legislation is as important now as it was in the previous mandate, when it sadly did not complete its passage through the Assembly. I commend the Member for continuing to pursue the issue, because it has not gone away. It is as relevant today as it was when we last debated it in the Chamber.

It is disappointing that, despite the topic being debated in the previous mandate and the fact that Mr Blair said that he would continue to pursue it, nothing has changed and the issue has persisted. That is why the Assembly has to legislate. This activity has been given many chances and there are many examples across the UK that demonstrate that it is no longer acceptable. Northern Ireland had not changed, but now we are forcing that change because it has to change.

It is confusing that so many Members speak strongly and sincerely about animal welfare in other contexts but seemed less willing to apply the same principles when the issue came before the House in the previous mandate. I look forward to seeing who supports the Second Stage of the Bill, particularly those who advocate for it outside the Chamber. At the end of the day, it is about action.

I have listened carefully to arguments on both sides of the debate. Like many Members, I have received a considerable amount of correspondence from constituents, particularly from the rural communities that I represent in East Londonderry, which has a significant rural population. They are concerned about the potential impact of the legislation. It is important that we hear those concerns and address them. That is what the passage of the Bill is all about. Certainly, in principle, I support the Bill. I have gone back to those who disagree with me and have outlined why, I believe, their concerns are misplaced. However, that does not mean that we do not take those concerns forward or consider them. If the Bill needs strengthened in order to reassure those who have concerns, we must do that as part of this process.

I have read the Bill alongside its explanatory and financial memorandum, which is not an abstract from the Bill. It is important and provides context, so that, when people interpret the Bill when it eventually becomes law, they do so in the context of what the Assembly intended. It is not something that we can disassociate from the Bill; it is why it exists. We also have to remember that the legislation sits within other legislative frameworks and contexts. Sometimes, we cannot remove that from the arguments that take place in the House. We cannot just say that the Bill will do this, this and this. There is precedent and standards. When judges make their decisions, they will look to case law for how they interpret legislation. We cannot just say that the Bill will do such and such. What does the interpretation of particular words and phrases mean? It means something, because someone has already made a decision on it in another part of the framework and the law.

I appreciate that Members are trying to poke holes in the legislation. It is absolutely our job to do that, but we must do that at Committee Stage and at Consideration Stage and Further Consideration Stage. It is important to remind Members that all law sits within legal frameworks, other laws, precedent and case law. That is how judges interpret the law; it is not just what one Member thinks of it.

It is also important to point out that, as Members, we bring ideas to the Bill Office, which transforms those ideas into draft legislation. This is not just something that we have all picked off Google; it is a really important process, and undermining it undermines every one of us who has an opportunity to introduce a private Member's Bill.

Mr Carroll: I thank the Member for giving way. Does she agree that, sometimes, the process that people have to go through can be a long one, especially for independent Members or Members who represent smaller parties?

Ms Sugden: Absolutely. I am drafting my own private Member's Bill. It would be irresponsible of any of us not to consider that in that context or within the wider legislative frameworks.

The debate should be grounded in the content of the Bill before us and not in assumptions about what it might become in future or in suggestions that it represents a wider attack on rural life, farming, lawful shooting activities or countryside management more broadly. I appreciate that Members will say, "This is the thin end of a wedge". I do not know how many times in my 12 years here I have heard that. Legislation does not happen quickly in Northern Ireland, and we are not good at it, compared with our counterparts in other parts of the UK or in Ireland. I do not ever think that it is the thin end of a wedge: when has the Northern Ireland Assembly ever moved fast on legislation?

One of the concerns that are repeatedly raised with me is that the Bill is somehow a stepping stone towards wider restrictions on firearms, hunting and other countryside activities. However, the Bill would prohibit the organised hunting of wild mammals with dogs: nothing more, nothing less. It does not ban lawful shooting activities, pest control, firearms ownership, farming practices, ordinary dog ownership or the lawful use of working dogs.

Importantly, if aspects of the Bill could unintentionally lead to consequences beyond what is intended, we will strengthen it. We will go through the various stages to address the concerns that have been raised. We will strengthen it through Committee Stage and Consideration Stage. We will tighten the wording and address the concerns as the Bill progresses. We do not need to reject the Bill at Second Stage on the basis of principles and assumptions that may or may not eventually be realised. We in the Chamber all have a responsibility to ensure that legislation is good, clear and proportionate law.

It is telling that the Bill recognises that there are circumstances in which intervention may genuinely be necessary. That is why there are exemptions in the Bill. They exist around livestock protection, pest control, disease prevention and biodiversity management. The Bill does not pretend that all interaction with wildlife can or should cease; it states that, where there is no genuine necessity and where the activity is ultimately recreational, the Assembly is entitled to ask whether the suffering involved remains justifiable. For me, ultimately, that comes back to animal welfare.

We have to be honest about what the activity involves. The organised pursuit of wild mammals by dogs, often over considerable distances and ending in injury or death, causes suffering. That suffering does not become acceptable because the activity has existed for a long time, just as something does not become cruel because society suddenly changes its mind. The suffering involved has always existed; the difference is that we are now in a position to decide whether we continue to permit it. That is the principle at the heart of the Bill.

It is significant that Northern Ireland is now the only part of the United Kingdom without legislation in this area. England and Wales legislated more than 20 years ago, and Scotland has since strengthened its laws. I appreciate that there are debates around enforcement there and loopholes elsewhere, particularly on trail hunting, and I expect that some of those issues will be further explored. Other Members have talked to that in their contributions. However, the principle remains important. Hunts happen across Northern Ireland, including my constituency, and people see them happening. They see hounds moving across fields and roads. Landowners and farmers have raised concerns around disruption, livestock distress and damage associated with hunts; indeed, my only experience of the issue is of constituents talking to me about the negative impact of the activity. Many people also witness wild animals being pursued in a way that really is not justified. I appreciate that some will see those activities differently — they will see tradition, sport or countryside culture — but many others see an animal being pursued for recreation in a way that causes suffering.

The distinction between necessity and recreation is important. There are circumstances in which difficult decisions involving animals may, unfortunately, be necessary. Farmers may need to protect livestock; pest control may be required; disease prevention may be necessary. The Bill recognises those realities, but, again, that is very different from organised hunts involving the pursuit of wild mammals by dogs as a form of sport or entertainment. Increasingly, many people struggle to understand why that continues to be lawful.

I reject the suggestion that support for the Bill is somehow incompatible with rural life or countryside communities. I live in the countryside. I am an advocate for the farming community. I regularly meet local farmers and listen to their concerns. I try to come to a position for farmers so that they can get on with doing the job that is so important for Northern Ireland and, indeed, across the UK and the world. As other Members have said, rural communities do not have a single viewpoint. It is really wrong to present the debate as though everyone living or working in the countryside supports organised hunting with dogs. It is simply not true. We also need to recognise that there is a new generation of farmers who do not accept the practice; indeed, protecting animals and animal welfare is a significant part of what they do, and they want to advocate that.

I have not met one farmer in my constituency who does not advocate for animal welfare and for ensuring that we do not take our animals in vain when we produce them.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way. Does she equally accept the point that there are many farmers who advocate for animal welfare and also for hunting in legitimate ways?

Ms Sugden: The Member mentions hunting in legitimate ways, but we are trying to make the barbaric sport of hunting animals with dogs for recreation illegitimate. If the Assembly accepts the legislation, that will become illegitimate, and we will have to move forward.

Mr Buckley: I thank the Member for giving way again. My point was that there are many farmers in our countryside who advocate for hunting because they see it as the most effective way in which to manage animal welfare.

Ms Sugden: The current issue on which we are trying to legislate does a disservice to those individuals, because they are then characterised in a certain way. As I said, such a law has existed in England and Wales for over 20 years. Changes have also been made in Scotland in that regard. There was a private Member's Bill on the issue in the previous mandate. It is not as though there has not been enough warning about the issue of hunting animals with dogs, but nothing has changed: that barbaric activity still exists. I say this to the Member and others who oppose the Bill: I have yet to meet anyone or read suggestions or comments from anyone who supports that barbaric treatment of animals. We are trying to ban that activity.

Mr Buckley: I appreciate the Member's leniency in giving way to me again. I reiterate this point: the fact that such a law has existed in England, Scotland and Wales since 2004 does not necessarily mean that we should import what could be bad law. Of the two peer — [Interruption.]

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I could continue — [Interruption.]

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Excuse me. Just resume your seat. Members, the Member is making a point. You might not like his point, but that is not the point. Sorry about that double pun. As you probably thought, he does not like the point about the point. Let the Member speak. He will be heard.

Mr Buckley: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I thank the Member who gave way. She treated my point with courtesy and respect rather than sneering from the corner.

I will finish my point. Two peer-reviewed pieces of research were done in England and Scotland: the Burns inquiry and Lord Bonomy's review, which have been mentioned. Both indicated that the law did not have a net beneficial impact on animal welfare. That point has to go to the heart of the debate, so that we get the desired outcome that the Member wants, which is better animal welfare.

Ms Sugden: I appreciate that. I think that I have said already that what exists in other parts of the UK is not perfect. I appreciate that there are criticisms about implementation.

That having been said, the core principle of what Mr Blair is trying to do is to remove the barbarity that exists in the countryside in Northern Ireland. Maybe we should do more to ensure that we implement it better, but, ultimately, it is about the principle and the message that we are sending, which is that that activity just is not acceptable. It is not acceptable simply because it is something that we have always done and it is tradition. The Assembly has consistently legislated on standards, behaviour and welfare as society has evolved. This is one of those issues, albeit a number of years too late. However, it is not unreasonable for us to conclude that some practices really should end, even if they have existed historically. It is also notable that many people are surprised to learn that the activity remains lawful in Northern Ireland at all.

There will be aspects of the Bill that require amendment or tightening as it progresses. We can learn from other parts of the UK about what not to do. If anything, if Northern Ireland is late in legislating where other regions have legislated, there is a benefit to that: we can strengthen areas where criticisms have existed.

At this stage, we are being asked whether the principle of the legislation deserves further scrutiny and development. In my view, it does. As I have said a number of times during my contribution, the issue has not gone away. The activity still exists in Northern Ireland. Quite frankly, I am horrified by that. I think that most of us, on seeing the worst effects of that activity, will be horrified. If the Assembly cannot legislate to ban that type of behaviour, I am really unsure about what the purpose of this place is. That is not to say that we should not listen to all those involved; it is not to say that we should not correct some of the misinformation that is being put out there; and it is not to say that we should not improve the law and take each word and phrase as it is. As I have said a couple of times, we need to look at it in the context of the wider legal framework, of case law and of what these things mean. That is how judges will interpret it, which is important.

By all means, let us move the Bill to the next stage, get it into Committee and then to Consideration Stage, where we will go through it clause by clause and ensure that we get it right and end a practice that, I think, most people in Northern Ireland would like to see end.

Mr Muir: It has been an extensive debate, so I will be brief. In preparing for today, I looked back to the debate in 2021. One person who is not here but who was part of that debate, and who personified the ability to have respectful debate and to disagree agreeably, was Christopher Stalford. I remember Christopher today for his ability to debate the issue.

Some Members: Hear, hear.

Mr Muir: There has been sustained and deeply felt public concern in Northern Ireland about the hunting of wild mammals with dogs, and that concern is reflected in the Bill before the Assembly. This is not a new or emerging issue. There have been strong calls, over many years, for a ban on the hunting of wild mammals with dogs, which, I believe, is a cruel, inhumane and outdated practice that no longer has a place in a modern, compassionate society. I pay tribute to the USPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports for their sustained and resolute commitment against animal cruelty and in favour of a ban in Northern Ireland. Let today be when we move forward to the next stage of that campaign.

As Minister, I am opposed to any form of animal cruelty, and I have made advancing and strengthening animal welfare a key priority for my Department. Our laws must keep pace with modern standards, and, where animal welfare concerns arise, the Assembly should be prepared to respond in a measured and effective way. We have acted before on related areas where the welfare case was clear. Hare-coursing events have been illegal here since 2011, providing an important reminder that the House has previously been willing to take decisive action where the evidence and public interest supported it. The people of Northern Ireland are very clear about their support for a ban on the hunting of wild mammals with dogs. Polling by LucidTalk in 2024 demonstrated that 76% of people here would ban fox hunting, 82% would ban hare hunting and 77% would ban rabbit hunting. That demonstrates a clear alignment between public opinion and the intent of the proposed legislation. The Bill presents an opportunity not only to respond to public concern at home but to bring our legislative framework more closely into line with the standards that already operate elsewhere across the United Kingdom.

As I have said, animal welfare is one of my top priorities. My Department, as the body responsible for overseeing the Welfare of Animals Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 will naturally support any measures that reduce or eliminate the potential for animal cruelty and to extend them to protecting wild animals. That is fully consistent with my Department's wider duty to promote and protect the welfare of animals across Northern Ireland. In addition to animal welfare considerations, there are practical implications on the ground. Hunting with dogs can affect farmland and property, disturb livestock, risk disease spread and create wider concerns for rural communities. The reduction of such incidents would be welcomed by rural communities and agricultural businesses alike.

The Bill proposes amendments to the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, which falls within my Department's legislative competence. In particular, it would create new offences related to hunting wild mammals with dogs, trail hunting and terrier work, with the aim of closing gaps in the current law and providing clearer protections. At present, the Wildlife Order is enforced primarily by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, with a more limited role for wildlife inspectors within my Department. As we consider the regulation of the new offences, it will be important that responsibilities are clearly defined to ensure that those charged with enforcing them can do so with clarity and confidence, with costs, resourcing, training requirements, potential practical issues and any unintended consequences considered, and with offences and penalties both proportionate and effective. That will, rightly, be for scrutiny at the Committee Stage, Consideration Stage and Further Consideration Stage if the Bill passes Second Stage, where, today, we debate the general principles of the Bill. To strike the Bill down at Second Stage and not give it a chance for scrutiny and development at further stages on the basis of technical issues and what I believe are unfounded fears about potential impacts on ordinary dog walkers, would be profoundly wrong. As I said, today is about the principles of the Bill. It is about whether you agree with those principles or not.

I commend John Blair for bringing the Bill forward and for his tireless efforts over the years to see this legislation progress. As Minister, I will engage constructively with the Member who introduced the Bill, with the Justice Minister on the new offences and penalties that would be created, and with other Executive colleagues as it hopefully moves forward beyond today. I am confident that, working together, we can ensure that the final legislation is robust, proportionate and effective, reflecting public opinion and our shared commitment to improving animal welfare in Northern Ireland. That is the standard that we are entitled to expect, and that is the standard that I intend to uphold.

It is wrong that Northern Ireland remains the only part of the United Kingdom without a comprehensive ban in this area, putting us in an unjustifiable and unforgivable position. The welfare issues raised by hunting wild mammals with dogs are serious and cannot be ignored. They can lead to distress, injury and avoidable suffering for wild animals, and they also raise concerns for the dogs involved. That is intolerable and unacceptable and needs the type of legislation that Mr Blair has set out to us today. I will be supporting the Bill at Second Stage, and I urge other Members to do likewise.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. I call on John Blair to conclude and wind up the debate.

Mr Blair: I thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, for chairing the debate, along with your Deputy Speaker colleague and the Speaker. I take this opportunity to respond to the debate and thank all Members for their contributions this afternoon and, indeed, this evening.

It has been an important discussion. Whilst some arguments were, as far as I am concerned, aimed to divert attention from the main issue of cruelty, the Bill also received much welcome support, and I am very grateful for that. Before addressing the points that were raised, I emphasise once more that Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK without a ban on hunting with dogs. We need to write that into the record again. Other jurisdictions have had legislation in place for around 20 years. Scotland strengthened its legislation in 2023, and the Government in GB are consulting on banning trail hunting due to the loopholes that it creates, so today is an opportunity to prevent Northern Ireland from falling even further behind when it comes to animal welfare.

I will now reflect as briefly as I can on Members' comments. I apologise in advance if I do not get them all in or respond to them all with the same amount of detail, but I will try to be representative. I clarified a point early on for Paul Frew about a reference to packs of dogs, and I hope that he has since found that and been able to look at it. Robbie Butler, as Committee Chair, talked of Committee consideration of the matter. As a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, he said that he would be content to support the Bill at this stage but stressed the importance of robust scrutiny and legal certainty. I am more than content, with my colleagues, to continue to have conversations with him on those matters in either his Committee capacity or his party capacity.

Áine Murphy of Sinn Féin spoke in support of the Bill, and I am very grateful for that. She spoke of the need to increase animal welfare standards across the island of Ireland.

I was not massively surprised to hear Tom Buchanan oppose the Bill. He cited a few general objections and omitted something that I will refer to later. He seemed not to mention foxhounds at all, which I found strange. That is a recurring theme among many who are against the Bill. He spoke about the absence of scientific evidence in favour of it but offered none on the status quo. That is another recurring theme, especially in regard to pest control.

Patsy McGlone spoke in the spirit of allowing the Bill to go to Committee Stage and talked about concerns relating to dog walkers and about the need for further scrutiny.

Paul Frew said that he was grateful for the exemptions. He spoke about licences, foxes below ground and falconry, which, he said, should be considered at Committee Stage, but he made it clear that he would not support any opportunity to amend or add to the Bill.

I am grateful to Kate Nicholl for her contribution and to her young son for the lovely drawing that he did to give me support. Kate spoke about constituency casework and the fact that so many people agree with a ban on hunting.

Diane Forsythe is not in the Chamber. In fairness, Members who are no longer here had every opportunity to be in the Chamber to hear what I have to say, but I hope that I am not being unfair in any of my commentary. Diane spoke about financial implications and seeking clarification. She expressed reservations about Members' Bills but then openly said that she had intended to introduce one. I see inconsistency in that: we cannot say that somebody can start to do it but I or other Members cannot.

Phillip Brett described today's debate as an example of the Assembly at its best and spoke — I am grateful for this — in support of the principles of the Bill. He said that what the Bill took aim at was morally wrong and that we needed modern standards.

Michelle Guy, my Alliance colleague, spoke in detail about the real lived experience of some of her constituents; I have spoken to them as well. I thank Christine Bailey and those who have campaigned with her for their support of the cause and their sterling work on behalf of animals and on animal welfare, which is ongoing and relates not just to the single action that I am taking.

Matthew O'Toole spoke for the Opposition. I thank him for his support. He spoke about the immense cruelty involved in all of this.

Harry Harvey said that he was unable to support the Bill.

Peter Martin is not here. I wish he were, because he spoke about annoying people on both sides of the divide, and I was going to say, "Welcome to my world". Some of us have been doing that for 50 years. I am grateful for his support, and I will engage with Peter and other colleagues as we go forward.

Gareth Wilson said that the Bill was complicated but, again, did not suggest any amendments or changes.

Brian Kingston talked about "unacceptable cruelty". I am grateful for the support that he was willing to give the Bill to go to Committee Stage.

I turn to Jonny Buckley's contribution. I will do something that I do not often do in the Chamber, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, in almost refusing to address what Jonny talked about today. I will give you my rationale. Jonny spoke about me and my colleagues as those who are inflicting harm, because our views differ from his. It is not the first time that something like that has happened. He then made the scathing comment that we had no understanding of the countryside, when he knows fine well that many of us represent rural areas. He then made the comment that — I quote — began, "If the Bill sponsor were serious": Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, I put that to you in the hope that you and the House will understand why I will not give a more substantive reply to somebody who speaks to me and my colleagues in that way and then accuses us of sneering. I will move on. None of the other comments will get a response because of the tone that was used.

Timothy Gaston was courteous. He opened by describing the Bill as vague and then quoted a KC who said that it was complex; I am not sure how that works out. He said that I said that I had considered the report — I would consider any report from a KC by the way — but I have no idea what is in the full report. I do not think that other Members do either, given that they seem not to have quoted from it beyond the newspaper report that I read. We need to be clear that the report was written for a pro-hunting lobby group, requested by and provided to it. There is a snapshot of it in a newspaper, but we do not have a full report to consider.

I am grateful for Gerry Carroll's response in his speech. He expressed support and talked about scaremongering in relation to dog-walking and other things. Like Claire Sugden, who spoke after him, he has been supportive of animal welfare measures. Claire has been supportive of that in the all-party group, too. I am grateful for her support on these matters and for her contribution today. Like Claire, Gerry returned to the principles of the Bill. I do not think that it is unfair to say that, at that stage, it might have been a while since we had heard about the principles of the Bill.

As you and other Members know, Madam Principal Deputy, the entire point of the Second Stage debate is to debate the principles, and we have done that. There were disagreements, most of them respectful. I thank all Members for contributing to the debate and say again that cruelty in the name of sport has no place in a modern society. I therefore encourage all Members to join me and my colleagues in supporting the principles of the Bill at Second Stage.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Congratulations. That concludes the Second Stage of the Hunting with Dogs Bill. The Bill stands referred to the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

Members, please take your ease before we move to the next item of business.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): In conjunction with the Business Committee, the Speaker has given leave to Sian Mulholland to raise the matter of access to early intervention and family support services in North Antrim. I call Sian Mulholland; you will have up to 15 minutes. Over to you, Sian.

Ms Mulholland: Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am really grateful for the opportunity to have an Adjournment debate on access to early intervention and family support services in North Antrim. The debate is about families who are trying to get help early before difficulty becomes crisis. However, too often, they find a system that is fragmented and overstretched and find that it is really difficult to navigate their way through the quagmire of different bureaucratic processes.

North Antrim is not without services, and I pay tribute to those who work in those services. In Ballymena and the Mid and East Antrim and Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council areas, we have dedicated staff working in Little Steps Sure Start, family support hubs, health visiting, school nursing, the children's early intervention service (CEIS), child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and community and voluntary organisations. However, for me, the question is whether families can access the right support quickly, locally and before crisis.

I recently engaged with Action for Children and have done so throughout my time as an MLA. It runs services across the Northern Trust area, including the Choices family support service, the family support hubs and Ballymena Little Steps Sure Start, which I have visited.

Their message was really clear: the model is good and the staff are committed, but the need and complexity are increasing, and demand is greater than supply. I recognise that Sure Start is funded through Education, not Health. However, it is highly relevant to this debate, because most health-related needs are first identified through Sure Start, health visitors, school nurses, GPs and family support services. There might be a speech and language delay, developmental concerns, a parental mental health issue, emotional distress, poverty or wider family stress. The question that I am asking, and the question for Health, is this: what happens next?

Parents do not experience their child's needs as an education issue one day, a health issue the next and a social care issue the day after that. They experience one family, one child and one urgent need for help. I have heard from a constituent whose child's developmental concerns appeared very early and very suddenly. Her child's speech regressed at just 15 months. It happened rapidly over the course of a week. She did everything right: she contacted the GP immediately and tried to seek help as early as possible. The autism diagnosis did not come until her child was almost three. That gap matters. Parents are told repeatedly that early intervention is crucial, particularly before the age of five when so much of the brain's development is taking place, yet, in practice, many families are left with little or no support while they wait for that official diagnosis. Some services cannot be accessed without the formal diagnosis, even when parents know exactly what they are seeing at home. Families who can afford it go private, but many simply cannot. That builds unfairness into the system from the very start. For that family, early intervention did not feel early. A child's development does not pause when a family navigates that referral process, the thresholds and the waiting lists. Most importantly, that window for support can be missed.

Action for Children also raised concerns with me about increasing special educational and additional needs. Those teams are adapting, but they require higher staff-to-child ratios due to safeguarding. If commissioning and funding do not reflect that complexity, services will be asked to do so much more with the same resource. What we are seeing across North Antrim and Northern Ireland is that need is widespread and increasing. Eligibility can still be based on old geographical boundaries and historic patterns of deprivation. New housing estates have been built and communities have changed, but children who need support may well be missed.

Poverty is yet another major pressure. When I visited the Trussell Trust food banks in Ballymena, it was clear that poverty is on our doorstep. Families are dealing with all sorts of housing pressures, fuel costs, childcare costs and the cost of the school day. Those pressures are not separate from a child's well-being; they absolutely shape it. I have constituents ringing my office with the same awful experiences far too often. At first, the issue may be that the electric is running low or the family needs an emergency food parcel. Then the school raises concerns about behaviour or attendance. Then the child is presenting as increasingly anxious, distressed and dysregulated. The family will be signposted in so many different directions, but nothing feels clear. Support and services feel too far away and too hard to reach by public transport. Often, they are just too difficult to navigate for a parent who is already in a pressurised situation.

Referrals can be made to CAMHS or for ADHD or autism assessment, but families are now being told that they could be waiting months or, more likely, even years for the help that they need. While a family waits, life does not stand still. Poverty persists, it becomes parental stress, and parental stress becomes family conflict. That can then affect a child's emotional well-being, behaviour and development. In some cases, it leads to intervention by the police and justice system. What began as a need for early help can then involve bringing in schools, health visitors, nurses, doctors, social workers, CAMHS, crisis services and, in some cases, care proceedings, all of which puts more and more pressure on our social and healthcare system. By that stage, the cost is far greater financially for the system and emotionally for the child and the family. Harm has become entrenched, relationships are fractured and the opportunity for earlier, cheaper and more humane support has been missed.

Mr Donnelly: Will the Member give way?

Ms Mulholland: Yes.

Mr Donnelly: Does the Member agree that where models of support, such as the Western Trust's family response and the early diversion work elsewhere, are already showing positive outcomes, the question should be how we can learn from those models to make that kind of practical, relationship-based support available to families in North Antrim?

Ms Mulholland: Thank you very much, Danny. That is pretty much the point that we are talking about: the postcode lottery. I will go into a wee bit more detail on some of the other projects and models that I have engaged on over the past few months.

It also applies to harmful behaviours. That is what fed my real interest and input. I met Marcella Leonard, an independent consultant social worker, who pointed to the widening gap in early intervention for children displaying harmful sexual behaviour, interpersonal violence, child-to-parent violence or technology-facilitated harm. Too often, the system there, particularly in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, was responding after escalation rather than therapeutically when the warning signs first appeared. That is the reality. There is a bottleneck in the system, and early intervention is one of the ways to unblock it.

Castle Tower School is a good example of how joint working between Health and Education, with speech and language therapy and occupational therapy, can unlock progress for children, because behaviour, communication, sensory regulation and emotional well-being are all connected. However, that is one school. It is not a whole trust. It is not a whole-constituency model. Families should not have to rely on being in the right setting to benefit from joined-up support. That is exactly why bringing that support together, whether it is through a family-centred model or a strengthened early intervention pathway, really matters so much across North Antrim, particularly for a rural constituency where access and transport are a big deal as well. Bringing services under one roof could be part of the answer in North Antrim. The Minister has spoken about it. Action for Children has spoken about it. They want to develop a family centre in Ballymena. At Ebrington, the Western Health and Social Care Trust's early intervention support services provide short-term, whole-family support for children aged from nought to 18 who face challenges around school, behaviour, family difficulties, development or health. That is the kind of accessible, relationship-based model that we should be ambitious for in North Antrim.

I have also seen some really promising work in other trusts that shows what early intervention can achieve when it is practical, relationship-based and delivered before escalation. I visited the Western Trust up in Creggan, where the family response service uses its funding from the Department of Health and the Western Trust. It supports families during the week and at weekends, using youth practitioners alongside family support workers and social workers to build trust with the young people and their families. It does not wait until the family reaches breaking point. It works earlier on a whole-relationship, holistic approach with the child. It works with young people who are at risk of family breakdown, exploitation, antisocial behaviour and, indeed, paramilitary threat.

The outcome of that work was really powerful. Families were linked into the community services. That even included connecting in with GPs and health visitors. Families then reported increased confidence in professionals, in social work and in their relationships with the social care system. Antisocial behaviour reduced, and threats against families were lifted. I met a really articulate young man and his mother who had taken part in that service. They told me that it had changed their entire world. Before that intervention, he was under threat from the paramilitaries. He was not engaging in school. His mental health was really poor. On the day that I met him, which was after that sustained, relationship-based support funded by the Department of Health, he was back in full-time education and the threat against him from dissident paramilitaries had been lifted. That is an incredible achievement through a joined-up working approach under the same roof, using all resources that were available to the Department of Health. Again, however, that is a postcode lottery. That is not happening across every trust.

I saw a similar principle in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. I visited early intervention work being done through the family support hubs. Youth justice created a route for children to get support before it escalates into formal justice intervention. That was funded through the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust. That work has dealt with child-to-parent violence, school assaults, sexting, substance abuse and, indeed, mental health issues, but it focuses on family relationships, emotional well-being, community connection and support around a child.

My point here is simple: when we have models of really good practice across other trust areas and intervene early, we can reduce risk, stabilise families and prevent children from being drawn much more deeply into the crisis systems. For me, those models should not be exceptional. They should not be based on a postcode lottery. There should be a standard that we can learn from for families in North Antrim.

The Department's Together for Families model is a really positive opportunity. The proposed level 2.5 enhanced family support service would sit between that community early intervention help and the statutory social services, which is precisely where, too many families have told us, they fall through the gaps. If it is delivered really well, it could strengthen family support hubs. It could embed family support workers and provide earlier multidisciplinary help.

It was welcome to finally hear today the Finance Minister announcing the Together for Families model being funded by the Assembly and by lottery funding. The original timeline was for it to be up and running by September, but that will not be possible given that the funding for it has only just been announced. Can the Minister give us a timeline for what the beginning of the process will look like and what the implementation of the model will look like?

Finally, my ask to the Minister tonight is, I hope, simple: will he ensure that early intervention and family support in North Antrim is visible, accessible and properly resourced with a clear pathway from that first concern right through to support? It needs to have a serious focus on poverty, given that his Department is part of the Executive and part of the anti-poverty strategy. Will there be rural access and a commitment to learning from the models that I have mentioned, such as the Western Trust's family response service and the Southern Trust's diversion pilot?

The debate is directed towards the Health Minister, but I recognise that it does not fall on the Health Minister alone. It lands at everyone's doorstep, but I encourage the Minister to use the Children's Services Co-operation Act 2015 to find willing Executive partners to pool resources and invest in the early intervention that, we know, works.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): I call Jon Burrows. All speakers will have approximately five minutes.

Mr Burrows: I thank my North Antrim colleague for raising this important subject. There is nothing more important in our society than children and young people. They should be our number-one spending priority. The Health Minister uses the phrase "shift left": if we really want to get into a preventative model for the delivery of public services in Northern Ireland, early intervention, early years and family support are critical. Not only are they vital in order to do the right thing for our young people and our families, but — realpolitik here — they are our future workforce. They are our future carers and our future public servants.

There are grave challenges in our society at the moment with increasing numbers of children who have additional needs, delayed development and special educational needs who are missing key milestones. It is really basic stuff. Teachers tell MLAs and others all the time about children coming in who are behind in milestones, such as being toilet-trained. Those are serious issues.

At the outset, I will say that what we need to do as a society is pick up things as early as possible. Let me give you one example. I spoke recently to two excellent speech and language therapists, who work in a speech and language therapy (SALT) team. They said that speech and language issues are identified years after they could have first been detected. There is a pilot in England that I found out about only today. I cannot remember the acronym for it, but it did a sample of children and found that it identified speech issues about three years earlier than normal. That allowed the intervention and allowed the children to flourish. The basics of literacy and numeracy flow from being able to communicate. Therefore, we need to shift everything way to the left.

There is some excellent work going on in health, with gateway services, family support and intervention teams and the community and voluntary sector, but we need to do more. There are a number of things that I want to address. The first is that investment in early years is absolutely critical. Support for parents in raising children and dealing with the challenges of today around screens and social media is something that we need to instil at the earliest stages. Teachers report an increased number of children coming to school who are behind in milestones but are fluent in using an iPad. When they go to take a screen off a child, the child becomes dysregulated. Because of busyness, pressures or issues that might be in the home, such as domestic violence, parents find it difficult to deal with issues such as taking a screen off a child. There are increased levels of homeschooling and anxiety or emotionally based school avoidance. That causes me huge concern about safeguarding, because we do not have a proper understanding of the numbers, and no proper assessment of the risks that are posed to children has been done.

A lot of significant reports, most of which have been commissioned in England, say that children who are homeschooled are at a much higher risk of abuse and neglect. I saw that at first hand in the police. It used to break my heart. While I am firm on law and order, I have compassion, because I know there is a bit of a postcode lottery in life. If you grow up on one street, the chance of you becoming involved with police interventions is far higher than if you grow up on a street a couple of miles away. You are much more likely to die younger and have a lower quality of life. There is a postcode lottery, and we need to equalise opportunity. That is where early intervention is key.

It also comes down to things in the Education Minister's portfolio such as childcare. Every time the subsidy that is available for childcare goes up and parents are given more money, it has an inflationary impact on childcare costs, because local childcare providers put prices up. It benefits nobody. Parents who want to work cannot work and do not get support. They come home frazzled and unable to support their children.

There are so many issues. Ballymoney is a good example. There are two childcare providers in Ballymoney. Regional inequality is a big thing. I welcome the debate that Ms Mulholland has secured. It is critical that we help people early, give them the best opportunity and look after the members of our future workforce, who will eventually look after us.

Mr McGuigan: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the issue and thank my constituency colleague Sian for securing the debate. Across North Antrim, families, practitioners and community organisations have highlighted the growing difficulties in accessing early intervention and family support services. As other Members have indicated, early intervention is critical. It can be the difference between a family coping and a family reaching a crisis point. It can prevent relatively minor challenges in childhood from escalating into significant difficulties in adolescence and adulthood. Sian and Jon indicated examples of such things.

Early intervention strengthens resilience, reduces harm and supports children to thrive. Importantly, it is also one of the most cost-effective investments that any health and social care system can make, yet families across North Antrim increasingly report that support is becoming more difficult to access and navigate. Waiting lists are growing longer, services are becoming more fragmented, and too many families are at risk of falling through the cracks.

There are significant concerns regarding the availability and location of early years services across the constituency. North Antrim includes a large rural population for whom access is already constrained by distance and limited public transport. That exists alongside areas of deprivation where families face multiple and overlapping challenges. In many rural parts of the constituency, such as Ballycastle, Bushmills, Armoy and the glens, families are often required to travel significant distances to access support services, frequently with limited or unreliable public transport options. For parents of young children, particularly those who are already under pressure, that can become a barrier in itself. For early intervention to be effective, support must be accessible at the point at which it is needed. Programmes such as Sure Start have been highly effective at identifying needs at an early stage, as others have indicated. However, those services are available only in certain parts of the constituency, creating what many families describe as a "postcode lottery" in accessing early years support.

I acknowledge the work carried out by organisations such as Dalriada Rural Sure Start, the local family support hubs and the many community and voluntary organisations that work across North Antrim. Their staff and volunteers make a genuine difference every day, but many of those services continue to operate under significant pressure and uncertainty.

While I welcome the development of the new, targeted outreach model for families who live outside designated Sure Start areas, its long-term impact remains to be seen.

I also want to acknowledge the vital role that is played by GPs, health visitors and schools in identifying the early signs that additional support could be required. They are often the first to recognise when a child or a family are beginning to struggle. I share their frustration and the frustration of families when support for those early concerns leads to an uphill battle to access assessments and services. Parents across North Antrim repeatedly raise concerns about delays in accessing autism assessments, speech and language support and child and adolescent mental health services. Those delays can have a profound impact, not only on the child's development but on family well-being and confidence.

Community and voluntary organisations are also doing commendable work in bringing family support directly into local communities, but they cannot be expected to compensate for gaps in statutory provision. Families who are experiencing stress, isolation and financial hardship are finding that services are increasingly overstretched. Children who require additional support are often left behind for prolonged periods, falling further behind in school or struggling with mental health, frequently without fully understanding why they feel the way that they do or how to manage it.

The consequences of delayed intervention are entirely predictable. When early intervention is delayed, problems escalate and pressures intensify. When services are fragmented, as has been said, families fall through the gaps, so we need early intervention. Every child deserves the opportunity to grow up safe, supported and able to reach their full potential. Every family deserves access to help before they reach crisis point. The evidence is clear: early intervention can change lives, and it should not depend on where a child happens to live, whatever part of North Antrim they live in. That support must be available consistently across North Antrim and the North.

Mr Frew: I rise to support Sian in securing the Adjournment debate on this very important and exceptional topic. The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. Everyone knows that quote from Gandhi. However, when we consider how we measure up as a society, I am not sure that we score very well. We score a lot better than some other nations and states across the globe, but in the so-called civilised Western world, I am not sure that we measure up. That is because so many parents and children are faced with a wall when it comes to accessing the services that they desperately need. They might get help here or they might get help there, but it is very rarely joined up, nor is it intensive, extensive or wide-ranging.

Even when a child gets support in the medical field, in an educational setting or from the Department for Communities, everything else falls around them anyhow. Even the support that they get, intensive as it may be in that setting, does not help them in any way because they are so vulnerable in other ways. In that context, we need to get radical, especially when it comes to our young people. We cannot leave them behind, and we certainly cannot give up on them. Sometimes, however, it feels like that. When the system keeps saying no, parents can think nothing other than we are giving up on them. When the system keeps saying no, the young person considers that they have been given up on, and that will lead to all sorts of other manifestations and issues.

I have fought hard on those matters. In my constituency, Ballykeel Primary School, Harryville Primary School and Camphill Primary School have been getting intensive support from psychiatrists and other specialists. It has been a couple of months now, and I cannot remember it all in my head, but that support was funded by the Department for Communities, which was really strange because those are educational settings. The schools were being offered psychiatric help and mental health awareness sessions, not only for the children but for their parents, yet the Department of Health had no part to play in that. The trust may not even have known that that support was going on, but everybody knew about it when it was under threat. We were able to get it put back in place. I got the Communities Minister down to visit a school where we discussed the matter with the three principals.

To me, that is a great model of joined-up-ness, but it was just three schools coming together. It is quite common and is common sense. The three principals got their heads together and funded that, and they got support from the Communities Minister at the time. Why can we not roll out such an approach for everything involving young people, wrapping care around them instead of them waiting for years for a diagnosis, with parents struggling to come to terms with children and adults' behaviours and children struggling to come to terms with parents' behaviours? Some families are in deep crisis, and they have absolutely no way of getting out of it, because no one really knows how to help them. If we help them on the one hand, we let them down on the other. That is not joined-up government, and it is not what the Executive were meant to be about. It is not good governance in any state in the world.

Mr Deputy Speaker and Sian, you will forgive me for raising the issue of lockdown. I do not care what anybody says: all or most of the issues that have impacted on the most vulnerable in society were made worse by lockdown. Those children and families suffered the most during lockdown and suffer the most hangovers from and after-effects of lockdown philosophy. I do not blame anybody in the Chamber and certainly not the Health Minister, but the Assembly has a blindness to that. The Assembly allowed it to happen, so the Assembly must come to grips with the role that it played —

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Paul, will you draw your remarks to a close, please?

Mr Frew: — and come up with solutions to assist pupils, parents and children with how to fight and get well again.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): I call the Minister.

Mr Nesbitt (The Minister of Health): How long?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): You have 10 minutes.

Mr Nesbitt: OK. Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and thank you to everybody who contributed to the debate. Thanks also to the Members who recognised that family support is not down to any single Department and is a multi-departmental challenge. For the Health Department, it is not an optional offering but a statutory requirement set out in the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995. Article 18 of the Order places a duty on the trusts to provide a range of social care services to children in need and their families. The aim is to safeguard and promote the welfare of those children and support them to be raised in a family home. On that basis, today's announcement of Together for Families is very welcome.

A child in need is any child in Northern Ireland who is:

or whose:

of support services. The concept of need is deliberately wide in order to reinforce the emphasis on preventative support and services for families. Given the range of challenges that children, young people and their families face today, it is more important than ever that we respond effectively. We must ensure that all children and young people are given the opportunity to develop their full potential.

In assessing individual need in families, trusts assess the existing strengths and skills of family members and put in place a plan to help them overcome identified difficulties and enhance those strengths. Sometimes the needs will be found to be intrinsic to the child; at other times, it may be that the parenting skills and resources are depleted or underdeveloped and thus threaten the child's well-being. Supported services provided under the Children Order include practical support and advice; befriending schemes; childcare provision; play facilities; specialist services; counselling; parenting programmes; respite care; provision of accommodation for longer periods; and financial support. In putting those packages together, trusts should take account of the excellent range of services provided by our colleagues across the community and voluntary sector as well as by the other Departments or their agencies. We recognise that effective family support often requires that collaborative multi-agency approach.

I will give Members a sense of the range of interventions that are currently supporting children, young people and families in North Antrim. In the Northern Trust specifically, a number of teams are providing services that are aimed at addressing the identified needs of children and young people when it comes to support and, where required, safeguarding, protection and corporate parenting. The Gateway social work service has already been discussed. The trust maintains statutory family support and a looked-after children's team. It works alongside our justice system to support children and young people who come before the courts. The aim is to ensure that their welfare needs are represented and that appropriate social care interventions are put in place alongside any legal proceedings.

The intensive family support team works with children aged 10 to 18 in the Northern Trust area. A key part of its role involves supporting children who are at high risk of offending, working with parents to help to prevent their children from becoming involved in crime, and helping them to address emerging patterns of challenging or problematic behaviour. The Links team offers services to children who engage in harmful sexual behaviour, helping them to make positive changes within an overarching trauma-informed approach. The project covers the whole of the trust area. It is based at Antrim Family Centre. It works with children, young people and their parents or carers where there are concerns that the child or young person has engaged in sexually harmful behaviour.

The Children's Early Intervention Service provides support to young people experiencing mild to moderate emotional and behavioural difficulties. This is done through group interventions, addressing problems such as anxiety, low mood and emotional regulation, as well as individual work, including behavioural therapy and family support. It is all aimed at reducing the impact of problems and preventing their escalation. The regional integrated support for education (RISE) service provides support to children in the Northern Trust area. RISE takes a holistic approach to social, emotional and behavioural needs in the school setting, with a team that includes behavioural therapists, clinical psychologists and other professionals. The service helps to address the behavioural difficulties at school that can be precursors to disengagement and offending. The trust, of course, works in partnership with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Youth Justice Agency, schools, voluntary and community organisations, and other statutory agencies to ensure that there is a coordinated response to children who are displaying offending behaviours. Children who come to the attention of statutory services in that context are treated as children in need, in line with the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995. We have five family support hubs covering the Northern Trust area, each one made up of community and voluntary sector and statutory agencies. They all deliver early intervention services to those under 18 and their families.

Action for Children's Choices family support service works across the Northern Trust area. It provides one-to-one outreach support to young people aged 10 to 17 and their parents or caregivers. The service seeks to provide support around a range of issues, including mental health and emotional well-being, and managing behaviours presenting at home, in school and in the community. Barnardo's early intervention family support service works across the Northern Trust, providing one-to-one outreach support to children between eight and 13 years of age and their parents. The service seeks to provide support in respect of a range of issues that present at home, in school and in the community.

The northern early intervention support service, which is led by the Public Health Agency, covers Ballymena. It works with families with a child aged up to 17 on an outreach basis, providing practical support with a wide range of presenting challenges. Home-Start Causeway provides practical and emotional support to families across the Causeway Coast and Glens area. Trained volunteers and staff provide weekly home-visiting support and group support to families with at least one child under five. A range of other organisations with more specific referral criteria provide support in the area, including the drug and alcohol intervention service for youth (DAISY), the young carers' service, Autism NI, Triangle Housing Association, Sure Start, the child bereavement service, Women's Aid and Safe Families. If, across Departments and sectors, we can continue to improve our multi-agency response, there is strong evidence to demonstrate that supporting families early leads to substantial economic savings as well as improved outcomes.

Of the work that is being taken forward by my Department to improve collaborative support, I want to mention two particular areas of focus. First, there is the neighbourhood model of health and well-being. That will see community pharmacies, GPs, GP Federations, voluntary and community organisations, the trusts, independent providers, other statutory bodies and local government working together in formal partnership to provide integrated care. It places local communities at the heart of how services are planned and delivered, and it focuses on designing care pathways that meet more needs earlier, before people reach a crisis point or need care in hospital. It is about shift left, prevention and early intervention, getting health and social care as close to your front door as possible. The model is built around 17 integrated neighbourhood teams acting as provider alliances.

The second is moving child social care services away from the skew towards child-protection activities and towards greater support, including very practical support for families at an earlier stage. That was, of course, a key message coming from Professor Ray Jones during his independent review of children's social care services in Northern Ireland.

Finally, I want to mention the Together for Families model announced today. It is a new transformational model of supporting children and families. Developed under the reform programme, it marks a decisive shift towards earlier intervention, stronger family support and more joined-up working. I welcome the confirmation today of the funding. It has been successful in securing £30 million from the transformation fund, and that has been matched by £30 million from the National Lottery community fund, which is an unprecedented intervention in Northern Ireland from that fund. On inconsistencies or postcode lotteries, Members will know that I am looking right across the board for consistent regional services. Work is already under way on Together for Families, with new practices being identified. I want best practices to be rolled out and for them to become common practice right across Northern Ireland. Work is already under way, and, now that the funds have been confirmed, we will firm up the structures to support it. Finally, with the single key worker or a lead practitioner under Together for Families, we will see more consistency and a lead operator coordinating across a range of Departments and agencies to deliver better outcomes.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Dr Aiken): Thank you very much indeed, Minister. Thank you very much indeed, Sian, for bringing the Adjournment debate to the Floor.