Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): In members' packs, there is a Committee Clerk's memo; copies of written submissions to the Committee's call for evidence on the Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill; and a copy of the Department's consultation on proposals for a new baby loss certificate scheme to assist in determining the detail around the scheme. Members have also been provided with a response from the Department to Gerry Carroll's query about a potential inequality that unmarried same-sex couples living in the North but undertaking IVF in the South face. There is also a response from the Minister about the liaison between departmental officials and the Forget-me-not Group. The Hansard transcript from that evidence session has also been provided for members.

In addition, members will find a revised Clerk's memo titled 'Consideration of Responses'; a Clerk's memo analysing the Citizen Space responses to the call for evidence; a response from Derry City and Strabane District Council; and a response from the Department of Finance about feedback from the Committee's evidence session with the Forget-me-not Group and issues raised by Belfast City Council. As members will remember, a few things came up in the very sensitive and touching session that we had with the Forget-me-not Group. This session is to give members an opportunity to discuss those responses and agree a way forward for future evidence sessions.

For the purposes of the record, and in order to give a full report of the views of stakeholders that are impacted on, we are trying to get a response from people from the funeral directing sector. Some people thought that the COVID-era secondary legislation was going to lapse, meaning that we would have to return to in-person reporting. Some funeral directors became very animated because they were concerned that what had been a sensible step forward was going to come to an end. That was never going to happen — it was a misunderstanding — but we are trying to arrange an opportunity for the Committee to receive evidence from the sector to assist us.

The Committee Clerk: We have now made contact with the representative of the local part of the sector. It is a UK-wide association, but there is a local representative. I think that we are linked to Scotland by a representative who seems to live in the Midlands. It is all very complex, but we have made contact. There is an all-party group (APG) meeting on, I think, Tuesday of next week, so —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Is there an APG on the subject?

The Committee Clerk: Yes. It is the all-party group on funerals and bereavement. The relevant people will be at that meeting next week, so we will meet them. There is a paper in the works. The sector wrote to us previously about the extensions under the Coronavirus Act 2020. The read-out that we have had so far is that funeral directors are extremely supportive of the electronic regime that now exists and that will be made permanent by the Bill. It is therefore about either getting written evidence or being able to receive an oral briefing before the summer recess. That is what we will be working on next Tuesday.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): That is helpful. Thank you very much.

We have received some responses so far from local government. Do members have any contact with other councils or their registrar teams? We all have local authorities that we engage with daily or weekly. Please encourage them — they are stakeholders — to respond to us. Derry City and Strabane District Council already has, as has Belfast City Council. The most critical thing, however, is that we have heard from people who have experienced baby loss. Their written evidence was really impactful. I encourage any other stakeholders who wish to give their views on the Bill to do so — anyone is entitled to give their view on any legislation — so that we can produce a full report. Does any member wish to add to that?

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Committee team for pulling everything together. It is clear and easy to understand, because it is well presented. I will flag a couple of things that came through in an evidence session to make sure that they are captured. One is about the details of the layout of the birth and death certificates in the case of stillbirths. The survey talks about registration of the particulars and who can do that, but we are asking for consideration of what appears on the certificate, in the sense of how it looks and makes people feel. We have a really good opportunity to grasp and highlight the matter in that way.

Another point that was raised in the same evidence session was about how the medical cause of death looks on certificates or registration documents and the impact that it has. Again, the consultation, in doing what it does, talks very much about electronic transmission, but I want to make sure that we take account of how documents look, pick up on that and feed it back fully.

The Committee Clerk: Fortunately, we have been having close consultation with the Department. As we have gone along, we have fed everything back to it, and it is already picking up on that issue. The Department has been incredibly helpful. There has been a fast turnaround of responses. The Department is already dealing with all the information that the Committee has received. The consultation is a really good example of that. The Department has heard what is being said about the language that is used and has already made sure that the consultation is language-friendly and should therefore not cause any more upset for people than the issues themselves cause them.

The vast majority of the responses that came through Citizen Space dealt with clause 11, which is on baby loss certificates. With the number of responses received being about 40, there are a couple of anomalies, whereby it may look as though people do not agree with things, but that is often down to one individual. I will give an example. One individual response was effectively a rejection of Western medicine and therefore the response to all the clauses was no. That is where the strange anomaly arises of people rejecting clauses with which everyone else is content.

I should also flag the language issue, which the Deputy Chair mentioned. Some of the issues that Mr Frew raised that have already been captured by the Department were echoed in the responses of some organisations.

I will explain how the Bill table that the Committee will use when we get further through the process will appear for members. For each clause, there will be an explanation of the clause itself, a list of the issues that have been raised through the consultation or by members, and the Department's response. Members will then have the ability to decide how they want to proceed with the clause. That will particularly relevant when we come to do the informal clause-by-clause consideration and the formal clause-by-clause consideration. We are planning to do the formal clause-by-clause consideration at the Committee's first meeting in September, which has become an extremely loaded meeting. We will, however, try to get the informal clause-by-clause consideration done prior to the summer recess so that we can go into the summer ready to clear up any issues. That is where we are at at the minute, Chair.

We are still getting feedback from councils. One council has got back to us with a response but does not want it to be published. We have also heard from a couple of other councils that they will have to wait for the approval of a council committee in July or September before we can publish their response. In order to work through that, Chair, I therefore ask the Committee to agree to adopt the issues raised in the responses so that the Committee is no longer reliant on any of the submissions. They are there, and, once they are cleared, we can publish them, but the Committee's agreement would mean that that will not slow us down. If the Committee adopts all the issues, they can be fed back to the Department, and the Department can respond quickly.

Mr Brett: What is the rationale behind councils' not wanting their response to be published?

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): That is a bit bizarre, is it not?

The Committee Clerk: It may be an overzealousness about getting clearance. Those councils have effectively ticked the "anonymous" box, meaning that their response should not be published until they are able to clear it. There was a cognisance on the part of councils that they wanted to get a response to the Committee, but that response has not necessarily been cleared. Once the responses are cleared, they can be published.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Do they have to be cleared by elected officials?

The Committee Clerk: They are cleared by relevant committee or subcommittee in the council. If the Committee adopts all the issues that are raised, we can deal with them now rather than have to wait for the responses to be cleared.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. That makes sense.

Mr Brett: One hundred per cent.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thank you. If members are content, we will extract, which is a good verb in my speaking note, the issues raised by those who have provided written submissions on the Bill and send them to the Department for consideration. Are members content?