Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): On behalf of the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, I welcome Dr Sean Haughey from the University of Liverpool, Professor Jon Tonge from the University of Liverpool and Professor Paul Dixon from the University of Leicester and Queen Mary University of London. Thank you very much for making the time to come to the Committee, gentlemen. We will give each of you up to 10 minutes in which to present, followed by questions from Committee members, if anybody has any. It is up to you in which order you wish to go. I will hand over to you.

Dr Sean Haughey (University of Liverpool): I will start, if that is OK. Thank you, Chair and Committee members, for the invitation. I made a written submission to the Committee. Hopefully, members will have had a couple of minutes to read through that. For the sake of time, I will not go over the detail of that submission, but I thought that it would be helpful to summarise the broad brushstrokes of the paper in the form of three questions: why, how and what? That is: why might there be a case for reform, what reforms are we talking about, and how should we go about reform — what process should we follow?

When it comes to the question of why, the institutions themselves have, in the past couple of years, made the case for there being some reform. In the past couple of years, the institutions have revealed themselves to be vulnerable to instability, which has had obvious consequences for public services but has also been damaging to the public's confidence in the institutions. In the Northern Ireland general election survey last year, we asked about public confidence in devolution, and fewer than 20% of respondents said that they had confidence that the institutions would stay up. Most people thought that they were likely to collapse again. If we are interested in improving public confidence in devolution, we might want to ask how we could better stabilise the institutions through TEO reform. I will turn to that in more detail in a few moments.

A basic but important point to make is that institutional review and reform is healthy for a democratic system. Political institutions do not or, at least, should not stand still. There is, of course, a time and a place for reform. I was in agreement with the DUP position in 2022. I was before the Westminster Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and I think that it was Carla Lockhart who said that it would be a grave mistake to reform the institutions while the Assembly was collapsed. I made the same point at a conference, which was, I think, in 2019, about when the institutions were down the first time: if you want to reform power-sharing, you have to involve the power-sharers, otherwise you put at risk the democratic legitimacy of whatever new institutional arrangement you arrive at.

We are in a different time and place now. The institutions are back, and we have relative political stability and are on the cusp of being 30 years on from the Good Friday Agreement. When we take all those contextual factors into account, it is hard to make the case for having no reform: that would essentially be to say, "We devised this system nearly 30 years ago in the heat of a protracted conflict, and now, 30 years later, that system should stay exactly as it is — we should not change it". That is not to say that there should be major reform. I would not make the case for sweeping or swift reform, but a case can be made for gradual, incremental reform.

Members might hold the view that the system should stay as it is and does not need reform. That is a legitimate view, but it is worth pointing out that it is a minority view. Last year's election survey involved over 2,000 face-to-face interviews across the North, and we used quota sampling so that it would be representative of the population. We asked people about the extent of the reform: whether there should be none, some or a lot or whether the system should be done away with and started again from scratch. Only about 26% of people think that the system should stay as it is — that it should not be touched and should be left alone. The majority of people think that there should be reform. There is a difference of opinion on what the extent of that reform should be, and most supporters of reform lean towards having moderate rather than significant or extensive reforms.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Do you have a breakdown of those figures, Dr Haughey? You said that 26% said that it should stay as it is. Was there a breakdown of the percentages for those who said that there should be moderate or major reform?

Dr Haughey: Of those who support reform, more than 55% are in favour of having moderate — "some" — reforms. I am in the process of writing a paper for a conference in which I have broken it down by party political support as well. I could send that to the Committee —

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Will you share that with the Committee?

Dr Haughey: — if that would be helpful.

It is a minority view that we should have no reform and keep the system exactly as it is. I emphasise that it is a minority view within nationalism, unionism and others, so there is cross-community support for having a degree of reform. The extent of the reform will need to be teased out in further research.

I will get on to the question of what those reforms would be. Jon will probably speak more about cross-community voting, so I will talk more about how we might stabilise TEO in the event of another collapse. The standout candidate in terms of potential reforms to TEO would be to make the nomination rights to TEO transferable. As we know, the system at present is such that a lot of power is concentrated in the hands of quite a few people: by "few", I mean a small number, so that one party can unilaterally collapse the system and prevent its re-establishment if it wants to. When we asked people last year about that scenario, we asked them to imagine that a First Minister or a deputy First Minister was going to resign and what they thought should happen next. Sixteen per cent of people supported the status quo: they think that, if a First Minister or a deputy First Minister resigns and does not want to reappoint to that office, the Executive should, indeed, come to an end and the system should come down. The majority of people, however — it has to be said again that that is the majority of unionists, nationalists and others — believe that the right to nominate should transfer to another party.

Again, Chair, there is disagreement as to what the "next party" means. Some parties' supporters — this is where there is agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP — meaning the majority of DUP voters and the majority of Sinn Fein voters think that the right to nominate should pass to the next largest party of the same designation. If a unionist resigns, it should go to the next biggest unionist party; if a nationalist resigns, it should go the next biggest nationalist party. Most Alliance voters think that it should go to the next biggest party, regardless of designation, and close to a majority of SDLP voters think the same. Therefore, there is some disagreement as to what the detail of that reform could be.

I am not going to talk too much about Assembly reform, because Jon will do that. You can make a fair case for a gradual reform of cross-community voting rules. At the moment, we have parallel consent and weighted majority: that is, 50:50:50 or 60:40:40. In the paper, I have suggested that we could move away from that gradually, so that you might want to, for example, use a difference-blind weighted majority for, for instance, the election of the Speaker. You could reserve or keep the traditional veto but use designations in a cross-community vote for things on which a petition of concern have been triggered or for some of the other key decisions that are predesignated in the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

That should be gradual. If we are going to have reform of something that is pretty fundamental to the Good Friday Agreement in terms of how we measure cross-community support, that should be done incrementally and over time. I will caveat that by saying that we are not rewriting the Good Friday Agreement when we use a difference-blind weighted majority. It is often a forgotten fact that a difference-blind weighted majority is in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. If you wanted to prematurely dissolve the Assembly tomorrow, you would use the difference-blind weighted majority or for decisions relating to the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) and the Commissioner for Standards, for example. All of those things are decided by a difference-blind weighted majority. There is institutional, political and legal precedent for a difference-blind weighted majority of two thirds of MLAs to make some important decisions.

Lastly and briefly, I will turn to the "how" and the process. If we want to have institutional reform, how should we do it or, perhaps I should say, how should we not do it? If there is going to be reform, we should not leave it to party political leaders to negotiate behind closed doors. The process needs to be as inclusive as possible, and it should have mechanisms for civic input. There are different mechanisms that the Committee could explore. The Assembly could do its own research, similar to the political engagement survey that the Assembly undertook in 2009, if members can recall. It may be that most members were not here in 2009. You could have a survey that looks at reform options in more detail. You could have citizens' assemblies, which are a better tool for potentially complex subjects such as institutional reform, because they give people information and time to deliberate and discuss their views with others who might disagree with them. The important point — this is my last point, Chair — is that the Assembly should be in the driving seat of that reform process. We do not need to have a crisis to renegotiate reforms or to bring in the British or Irish Governments, Richard Haass or anyone else. This is a moment for the Assembly to take control, to grab the bull by the horns and to demonstrate its capacity to deal with a potentially difficult issue in a mature and inclusive way.

Professor Jonathan Tonge (University of Liverpool): Thanks very much, Chair and members, for the invitation. Much of what I am about to say will echo what Sean said, so I will keep my comments fairly brief, because there will be a lot of repetition.

Assembly reform is not the key to making the political institutions work better; it is much more about behavioural factors than institutional ones. That is not to underplay the importance of institutional tweaking and reform where necessary. In many ways, there is an awful lot of support for the existing system. There are few takers for direct rule. Every survey — not just ours at the University of Liverpool, on which I worked with Sean — shows that. The system is inclusive and proportional. Coalition government is difficult. I have just hotfooted it here from party conferences where single-party government has proved rather difficult.

The easy option is to do nothing, but that would assume that everyone is content with some of the negatives that we can highlight: the political institutions have been missing in action for more than 35% of the time since their creation; you have cross-community voting that excludes in effect the main cross-community political party here; and there are possible deterrent effects. What is really hard to measure, although we have tried, is to what extent the fact that the institutions are predicated on unionism versus nationalism/nationalism versus unionism deters those who are neither unionist nor nationalist from voting. The turnout among nationalists and unionists is far higher than among those who say that they are neither unionist nor nationalist. That is not just a product of the way in which the institutions are created, but it is a contributory factor.

Sean highlighted the fact that only 16% say that they are confident that the Assembly will not collapse again. Whilst the growth of private Members' Bills has been welcome, the fact is that only four legislative Bills were passed after the Assembly resumed, two of which were Budget Bills that had to be passed. Furthermore, there has been a falling behind. You have to look comparatively. Scotland and Wales have progressed and fully developed as Parliaments: could you say that about the Assembly?

There is a case for reform based on those negatives. It is also absurd to suggest that reform necessarily threatens the Good Friday Agreement. There have been lots of tweaks since. The St Andrews Agreement, most obviously, changed time limits over Executive formation, there is an official Opposition and a Minister of Justice via a cross-community vote. The issue is how to modify power-sharing principles in the context of the Good Friday Agreement. That is the point to make.

What reforms could we advocate? The first is the obvious one, namely the low-hanging fruit. It has been kicked around for so many years that I will understand if Members are bored with it, but the title "deputy First Minister" is fundamentally misleading. Emma Little-Pengelly is not a deputy to anyone in the same way as Martin McGuinness was never Ian Paisley or Peter Robinson's deputy. It is misleading. It is the wrong title, and it makes sense to reclassify as "joint First Ministers". My personal view is that I would welcome the day when there was a single First Minister and you had the power-sharing within the remainder of the Executive. However, I do not think that that would ever run politically.

I would also make bloc designation immaterial in filling the deputy First Minister post.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Will you repeat that, please, Jon?

Professor Tonge: I would make bloc designation immaterial in filling the deputy First Minister post; in other words, it would go to the leader of the next largest party.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Rather than assumed designation?

Professor Tonge: Yes. With regard to day-to-day workings, the First Minister and deputy First Minister should not be able to block items from appearing on an Executive agenda. Those are the changes with regard to First Minister and deputy First Minister.

With regard to communal designations, once upon a time, I would have been slightly more gung-ho in getting rid of them. Sean touched on that. When we have asked members of the electorate, they are not keen on getting rid of the communal designations. They see the risk in getting rid of them wholesale.

The question is whether the first thing that a newly elected MLA should have to do is to designate as unionist, nationalist or the rather reductionist "other". Should that be the first principle, or should there be scope to designate as unionist, nationalist or other for certain votes? I would not pre-specify what votes those would be, but there is a case for allowing communal designations only in certain circumstances. In many ways, that would consolidate the current reality, which is that more than 80% of votes here are not taken on a cross-community basis. You can get slightly too hung up on the idea that there has to be communal designation.

You could rely on weighted majority voting for many votes. I would go more towards the top end of that in order to reassure representatives of each community that their interests would still be represented. I would be in favour, therefore, of a 70% supermajority — I would go higher than 65%, if necessary. A 70% supermajority, discounting the Speaker, would mean a requirement for the support of 63 MLAs to get something across the line, which is a substantial number. That would be workable. Even 65% would represent 58 MLAs, minus the Speaker, so there would still have to be substantial support from a big swathe of the Assembly in order to get a measure through.

To echo Sean's point, we have to be careful about getting rid of communal designations wholesale. For example, in our 2019 general election study, when we asked whether legislation should require support from majorities in each community — by which we meant unionism and nationalism — a majority of electors responded, "Yes". They were not gung-ho for the removal of those communal designations; only a small percentage dissented from that approach. They accepted the principle that legislation should have support from communal designations. I am not, therefore, advocating getting rid of communal designations wholesale. You could confine them to specific legislation. That would be a tweak to the system rather than a bulldozing of it.

I will finish with a couple of other recommendations. On the issue of trying to prevent the collapse of the institutions, Sean highlighted the fact that more electors said that, if a party quits or refuses to nominate, it should transfer to the next largest party in the same bloc rather than to the next largest party overall. That shows again that the public are wary about the wholesale dismantling of communal designations. There should at least, however, be an opportunity for the next largest party within the bloc to nominate. I was quite taken when, at her party conference, Naomi Long asked, "Who here thinks that parties would quit if they knew that the business of government was going to carry on here?". That point resonates. Would they quit if they knew that business would carry on? I see the dangers with that. If you look at the difference in party size between Sinn Féin and the next largest nationalist party — the SDLP — by number of MLAs or at the difference between the DUP and the UUP by number of seats, you will see that it is problematic, but there is a case for it. A move to a qualified voluntary coalition would work.

On the issue of the nomination of a Speaker, I back what the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the House of Commons said: a two-thirds vote in favour seems reasonable.

I have a final, curveball point. I would rename the institution for the sake of its status. The Northern Ireland Assembly should be a Northern Ireland Parliament, in the way that Scotland and Wales call theirs Parliaments. An Assembly does not have the same status as a Parliament. That may have to be accompanied by fiscal powers, but it would be a useful change for the status of the institution.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): That is food for thought.

Professor Paul Dixon (Queen Mary University of London): Thank you very much to the Committee for having me. My presentation is rather different from a lot of the submissions that you will have had, because my interest is much more in the politics of Northern Ireland and how constitutions arise from political conflict. I will try to contextualise some of the debates on constitutional issues in academia, and then I will talk a bit about how the Good Friday Agreement came into being and the role of politics in that.

Constitutional traditionalists tend to have a one-size-fits-all solution to conflict in terms of constitutions, and they tend to believe that their particular interpretation of a constitution is correct. Here, we have two groups: the consociationalists, about whom you might have read — I call them "segregationists", which is simplified, but it gives you a good idea — and the integrationists. You can see the broad differences between the two groups in their approaches. The consociationalists or segregationists believe that the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is completely consociational and, therefore, that politicians, either consciously or unconsciously, arrived at the deal on the basis of consociational principles. They believe that the reinforcement of communalism and communal identities provides the stable building blocks for power-sharing over and above them. They tend to see designation as a good idea and the reinforcement of nationalist/unionist identities and the marginalisation of others as being conducive to building a strong and stable peace in Northern Ireland. For them, segregation is important because good fences make good neighbours, and, if you have your communities segregated, they do not come into contact and conflict, which allows the political elites to do the deals over the heads of the people. Consociationalists, in political terms, have tended to be pro-nationalist. In power-sharing, they want to give guarantees to minorities. Sometimes, they are nationalist to the extent of insisting on their interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement, even though it might push moderate unionists out of negotiations.

Integrationists, by contrast, are highly critical of the Belfast Agreement. They see it as segregationist and consociationalist, and, therefore, they have opposed it because they favour the mixing of communities and the amelioration of hostile identities and even an emphasis on other, cross-cutting identities, whether they be gender, race, disability or class. They opposed the Good Friday Agreement as a communal stitch-up where the political parties dominate and there is little democracy and input from public opinion. They want to see a movement away from segregated housing and education, for example, and a move towards integration. They tend to oppose designations, because they believe that that reinforces hostile communal identities and would prefer that other aspects of identity were emphasised.

The problem with consociationalism is that it has been redefined over the years. It first came to light in the 1960s, and people keep redefining it, depending on what is happening in the world. If Northern Ireland looks as though it is going well, they want to be able to redefine their theory to claim it. When things are not going so well, they kind of say, "Well, Northern Ireland is an exception to the rule". They claim success and distance themselves from failure. There is also little evidence that the negotiators of the Belfast Agreement actually knew what consociationalism was. If you look at all the memoirs, you see that no one is writing about how they were sitting there with the consociational blueprint. Another criticism is that they tried to insist on a kind of segregationist implementation of the agreement after 1998, because they believed that they had the one true interpretation of that deal. Criticism of integrationists tends to be that they romanticise public opinion and voting behaviour. In the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement, there was political polarisation, and opinion polls tended to suggest that there was intense hostility. That is really why politics is so important. It was about how the political actors overcame the intense conflict at a grassroots level and came to a deal within four years of the IRA ceasefire in 1994.

The new constitutionalists, on the other hand, tend to emphasise the broader context in which constitutions are negotiated. They are not overly fixated on the details of constitutions; rather, they look at the broader social security context. They do not see universal solutions to conflict. They see contextual solutions: taking your principles and trying to see what the possibilities are in the political context for achieving movement towards those principles. They would also argue that constitutions, such as the Good Friday Agreement, are open to interpretation. It was designed to be open to interpretation, because, when writing a constitution, you need to have the dynamism and flexibility to keep the political process on the road. Therefore, it could be interpreted in order to address the difficulties of republicans, unionists or nationalists, as politics developed.

We can look at Northern Ireland and its history and go back to the first peace process in 1973-74. That deal was pretty similar to what happened in 1998, which Séamus Mallon called "Sunningdale for slow learners", except that, in that case, there was a First Minister, whereas, in the 1970s, there was a Prime Minister — Brian Faulkner. Similar to how things were in 1998, there were toxic security issues in 1973-74 and even issues within the British state managing the British Army and the security forces, which tended to be opposed to power-sharing. In the second peace process — to repeat myself — you had the dilemma in 1994: you had an IRA ceasefire in the context of polarisation. How, after 25 years or more of violence, will political actors bring people to some kind of agreement and get a referendum passed? The answer to that is that politicians used exceptional political skills and pragmatic realism, or some would say deception and manipulation. Again, as Séamus Mallon said, we had gone beyond the position of who was right and who was wrong, and, if you cannot move, it is politically wrong. That alludes to the pragmatism that the negotiators had on all sides to address each other's problems with their own constituency in moving things forward.

A range of political skills were used, including, of course, the constructive or creative ambiguity of the agreement itself. Jonathan Powell said that the Good Friday Agreement was necessarily based on ambiguity. The two sides were too far apart to get to agreement on decommissioning, so it had to be phrased in such a way that both sides could project their desired interpretation of the text. The Good Friday Agreement failed in a way, in that plan A was very much to build power-sharing on the moderate centrist parties. It was not anticipated that polarisation would continue and that the UUP, SDLP and Alliance Party would diminish, so 2007 was very much plan B, not plan A. Even at the start of those negotiations, Tony Blair in London — a lot of people — could not see that there might ever be a deal between Sinn Féin and the DUP in 2006-07.

What I am trying to do is to look at the broader context and the politics of constitution-making in which constitutions are negotiated. The intention in the first and second peace processes was very much based on moderate power-sharing and integration. That is explicitly in the Good Friday Agreement. St Andrews was very much a plan B. Constitutions and constitutional change were very much the result of considerable political skills on all sides in the peace process who understood each other's difficulties in reaching an accommodation that no one would be entirely happy with. Although integration is often associated with the moderate parties, there are traditions within unionism, the DUP and republicanism that support an integrationist future for Northern Ireland.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Thank you very much. I felt as though I was back in Queen's University lecture theatre.

Mr O'Toole: You paid more attention this time.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I really enjoyed that.

I have a couple of questions before I open it up.

Dr Haughey, your themes struck me, particularly the one on why there may be a case for reform. Your first point was about public confidence. There are different arrangements in the Northern Ireland Assembly from those in the other devolved legislatures across the United Kingdom. How did public confidence in the institutions here vary with that elsewhere? Are there any studies to show variance in the difference legislatures, be it the Welsh Parliament, the Scottish Parliament or the UK Parliament?

Dr Haughey: Those Parliaments have not had the same history of political instability, so you will not find survey questions about those institutions that tackle their future instability. You will find more general survey questions that deal with public trust and confidence. Our scoring on those fronts tends to be a bit lower, but I would not necessarily say that one can explicitly pin that on the design of the institutions here.

Other contextual factors — a divided post-conflict society, polarisation and so on — can factor into people's thinking about political trust. If you ask people here about trust in politicians, they may respond, "Which politicians?". That complicates things, but, regarding public attitudes to the devolved institutions more generally, Scotland will tend to do better, followed by Wales and then us.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Do you have specific figures? When there is instability, the question arises about a lack of confidence and a lack of trust in institutions, and I see that around the world. Although I understand that there are nuances in the arrangements, what I am trying to get at is whether there is a big difference in how the public in Scotland and Wales trust and have confidence in their institutions compared with how we view them in Northern Ireland.

Professor Tonge: I will take that, Chair. In Scotland and Wales, the questions tend to ask electors, "Do you want more powers?". The lack of trust in Northern Ireland is evident, because we have asked, "Do you think that the Northern Ireland Assembly should have tax-raising powers?". People have tended to answer no to that, whereas, in Scotland and Wales, electors have wanted more powers for their institutions, and not just gung-ho nationalists. It is not just the voters of parties such as the Scottish National Party that want more powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Labour in Wales has been very proactive in transforming the institution from a low-key Assembly into Senedd Cymru, which is a full-blown Parliament. That is the difference. When we put such questions to people in Northern Ireland, however, they are wary of the Assembly getting taxation powers.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Further to that point, you talked about some of the statistics on support for devolution across parties and across communities. Do you have a figure for the percentage of the public that supports devolution compared with the percentage that does not? That will feed into the public's attitudes to the institutions in general.

Dr Haughey: I come in on that first. I was involved in a research project a couple of years ago. It was a quantitative study of attitudes to devolution. It found strong support among people for the principles of devolution and for the broad principles of power-sharing, but, at the same time, the same people had high levels of dissatisfaction with the performance of the Assembly and the Executive. It is therefore quite nuanced. On the back of that, I was involved in another qualitative survey. It is hard to get your head around it sometimes that people can express strong support for devolution but, at the same time, express strong dissatisfaction with the institutions' performance.

A few years ago, I was involved in a deliberative forum, which was a kind of mini citizens' assembly. When we asked all our focus groups to assess the institutions, one of the main points that they made was that it was difficult to do so because the institutions kept collapsing and that they needed a period of stability before being able to make that assessment.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Is there a potential point there that a lot of the public perhaps realise that it is a complex situation in Northern Ireland, with diametrically opposed views on many issues? Although the people of Northern Ireland want those who are elected to govern, they are also realistic enough to understand that there will be difficulties and bumps along the journey. Is that filtering through? I continually hear — anecdotally, admittedly — that there are those who understand that government is not going to be perfect here. Did you find that to be the case in any of the analysis of what you asked the focus groups?

Professor Tonge: Without getting bogged down in the detail, we put forward various propositions. The first was, "The power-sharing system remains the best basis for governing Northern Ireland and requires no changes: 20% said, "Yes, it's perfect. The system is fine, so carry on". That differs, however, from responses on the long-term constitutional question, about which we asked separate questions.

The second proposition was that the power-sharing system remains the best basis for governing Northern Ireland but requires changes in order to work better. Forty-four per cent agreed with that. That equated to a cumulative total of around 65% or two thirds of the electorate who are happy with power-sharing. They are either perfectly happy with it or just want it to work better. Only 6% said that the power-sharing system is no longer the best basis for governing Northern Ireland and should be substantially changed. Another 7% said that it has never been a good basis for governing Northern Ireland —.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I am sorry: what was that percentage?

Professor Tonge: Seven per cent said that the power-sharing system has never been a good basis for governing Northern Ireland and should be replaced. We can therefore say that the percentage of outright opponents of the system comes in at around 13% or 14%. The rest of the electorate are onside, but more want changes to be made to the system than want the status quo.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): That leads me on to the question that you all touched on slightly. What constitutes major reform and minor reform? You used the word "tweaking", Jon. That goes to the heart of the matter. There have been certain tweaks made along the road. Even in a small way, there was the issue of the petition of concern. Slight tweaks were made to that, and it has not been used since. I believe that cross-community voting was a major change, although others' perspective may differ. Do you believe that, because of power-sharing, the different community designations and strong feelings about representation, particularly when it comes to cross-community voting and other aspects, we can have that type of change without buy-in from the major political parties that represent the different traditions?

Dr Haughey: I will go first on that, but I do not want to monopolise the time. There is a degree of subjectivity around what constitutes major and minor reform. Minor tweaks can sometimes have somewhat bigger ramifications. One of the proposals that would definitely fit into the major camp would be doing away with mandatory coalition and moving towards having a more voluntary form of coalition. You will struggle to get either public or political buy-in for that. From the research, we know that there is limited public buy-in for it.

The citizens' assembly that I mentioned discussed whether we should have mandatory coalition or do away with it. We were with a representative sample of people from Northern Ireland for a day. In the morning, no one had anything good to say about mandatory coalition. In the afternoon, we showed them how a voluntary coalition would work. A lot of people then said, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't".

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): That is interesting.

Dr Haughey: Those significant structural reforms of how a Government are formed would be better placed as a longer-term ambition. You do, however, get public buy-in for some of the more moderate reforms, such as reform of TEO through the transfer of nomination rights. As Jon pointed out — I listed the statistics in my submission — only a minority of people think that the status quo is a good way of running that system. If a party resigns from TEO and does not reappoint someone, the system should come to an end eventually, whether it is in seven days or after a couple of months of caretaker Ministers. You will find cross-community and cross-party support for an alternative.

As I said, there is a difference of opinion on what the "next party" means. Some people think that it should be the next party of the same designation. They are therefore implicitly endorsing designations. Other party supporters think that it should be the next biggest party. On the basis of a mandate or public support, even though it would stabilise the institutions and the consequences would be significant, that is one reform that could be implemented that would have limited implications for other aspects of our system.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): You would probably accept that, if the position were to move to one in which, for example, the First Minister or the deputy First Minister were not nominated from the two major traditions or parties, and, instead, those posts were to go to whomever was willing, we would be moving towards a voluntary coalition of sorts, which would not be in line with what, your research has shown, the majority of people support. Is that a fair assessment?

Dr Haughey: No, it is not, because it would be a voluntary coalition of sorts. Most DUP voters and most Sinn Féin voters — just about more people than not — would say that it is about designation, meaning that the role should go to the next party of that designation. If it were a free-for-all, the role would go to the next biggest party, but people are more likely to say that we should still think about designation. That would be a qualified voluntary coalition, because one position would need to remain within nationalism and the other would need to remain within unionism. That would not be a no-holds-barred coalition; it would be a qualified voluntary coalition.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): In the context of the evidence that you took on designation and whether the posts should remain within the same traditional bloc from a cross-community position, you, Professor Tonge, mentioned Naomi Long's comment. Can you provide some context? Was it that, if one of the two major parties were not to nominate an FM or a dFM, the role would then go to a party of the same bloc or was it that the role would go to the next largest party? What was the context behind that comment?

Professor Tonge: Naomi Long was addressing her party conference last year or perhaps it was the year before last. She said, "Who here thinks that parties would walk out if they knew that the rights would transfer?".

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): The right to nominate.

Professor Tonge: Yes, the right to nominate. I assume that she was thinking, "We are the third-largest party, so we would have that right", but we found some caution among the electorate for that. It was not an outright majority, but the favoured option was that the nomination rights should pass to the next largest party in the same bloc.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Was that for the posts of FM and dFM only, or did it include responsibility for ministerships as well?

Professor Tonge: It was for the nomination of the FM and the dFM. The context was that Stormont had collapsed at the time.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I am thinking about the wider ministerial positions, because that has happened. For example, the Ulster Unionists withdrew from the Executive to go into opposition, so it has happened in the context of the wider Executive. Her point was therefore primarily about the right to nominate the FM and the dFM.

Professor Tonge: It was post Paul Givan's withdrawal from being First Minister.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): OK. That is enough from me. I found that very interesting

Mr O'Toole: It is fair to say that we have a degree of voluntary coalition already to the extent that, at the minute, only the largest party from each designation is obliged to be in the Executive. Neither the Alliance Party nor the Ulster Unionist Party is legally or electorally obliged to be in the Executive. It is therefore important to acknowledge that there is already a degree of voluntary coalition.

Thank you. That was really comprehensive and interesting evidence. It is interesting to restate the fact that there is not just a simple majority but a cross-community majority in support of substantive reform. There is, however, nuance involved. There is a revealed tension in public opinion, in that there is support for the principles of power-sharing — perhaps some form of consociation, to go back to the theories that you set out, Professor Dixon — versus a deep frustration with the way in which power-sharing has operated and therefore a desire for reform.

Dr Haughey, you talked about a need for the Assembly to press forward with reform rather than have the British and Irish Governments take the initiative. At the minute, it does not look as though the British and Irish Governments, for different reasons, are particularly interested in driving forward the reform agenda. Their attention is probably elsewhere. How should the Assembly drive forward that agenda? There are different views, but why is that your view?

Dr Haughey: It could be a real moment for the Assembly. First, we have to concede that institutional reform is a difficult and potentially controversial topic, and it is complex. Often, however, this place has farmed out difficult decisions to elsewhere. At times, we have abdicated responsibility, and important decisions have been taken elsewhere. If it were in the driving seat for that discussion, it would be the mark of a more mature Assembly.

The Assembly might undertake its own research or have a citizens' assembly and, when the results come back, decide, "We are not there yet on reform. The public aren't getting behind it", but it would still be a badge of quality for the Assembly to say, "We engaged with people on this issue". You would be able to tap into people's views on the question of what they think of government here and how they think it could work better. You would have a lot of interest in that.

In 2013, a predecessor Assembly and Executive Committee undertook a review of institutional reform, which concluded that there was a need for cautious system maintenance, so it was decided to keep things as they were. Reform came about — think of the Opposition — but it had to come about through other, difficult means, such as a private Member's Bill. It is best for the reform discussion to be driven by the Committee, which is a multi-party, cross-community Committee.

Mr O'Toole: OK. I will happily give evidence. I should already have declared an interest, given that opposition is part of this, as the leader of the Opposition. I am happy to give evidence on, for example, the ways in which opposition has worked or has not worked and on opposition rights.

Professor Tonge, you suggested in your evidence and, Dr Haughey, you told the Committee that there are options for moderate reform and more major reform. Although there is not complete consensus on what is minor and what is major, one of your suggestions is on something that is a major part of our political discourse but perhaps should not be so major, given that, as you acknowledged, Professor Tonge, it is about literally one word, which is "deputy", coming between the two First Minister titles. I am interested in whether you think that, almost 30 years on from the agreement, we should move to equalise the two posts. We can go over the history of why that word is there in the first place, but you seem to think that that should happen.

Professor Tonge: Yes, I do. The word "deputy" in the title is misleading. The deputy First Minister is deputy to no one. The First Minister and the deputy First Minister are coequals and should therefore be called "joint First Ministers" until such time as a deputy First Minister is no longer required, in which case you can have one First Minister. I suspect that that would be politically difficult, even though, speaking personally, I feel that it would be desirable. It is only because of inertia and the status that has accrued to "First Minister" that people are reluctant to get rid of the different titles, but, frankly, it is a nonsense. The deputy First Minister is deputy to no one, so retitle the post.

It has been suggested that there should be three First Ministers, in order that the "Other" bloc is represented. You would then have co-First Ministers

but that strikes me as being remarkably cumbersome and not to be —.

Mr O'Toole: There is a real-time rejection of that.

Mrs Guy: You are already saying no.

Professor Tonge: I really would not encourage that. We also do not know what the size of the "Other" bloc will be after the next Assembly election.

Mr O'Toole: Professor Dixon, you set out in a very good and interesting, if theoretical, way the position of integrationists versus that of segregationists, which are the terms that you used. I am sure that others will disagree with your depiction, but you set it out very interestingly. Am I right that you are saying that the 1998 agreement was a softer form of consociationalism that, at St Andrews, slightly hardened into a form that was, if you like, more tribal? Is it fair to depict it in that way? Consociationalism was clearly a big part of the 1998 agreement, and there is a debate, including in some of your papers, about which Prime Ministers and politicians were aware of the theory and practice of consociationalism and whether they had read everything that Brendan O'Leary had written about it, but that is a debate for another day. I am sure that you guys would educate us all about it.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): We can come back to that one. [Laughter.]

Mr O'Toole: Exactly. The question is about the St Andrews Agreement versus the Good Friday Agreement. St Andrews hardened and kind of tribalised consociationalism. Would you agree with that, given that the St Andrews Agreement meant that there did not have to be a joint election of the First Minister and the deputy First Minister but, rather, a "separate but equal" mandate?

Professor Dixon: Yes. I would not call the Belfast Agreement consociational. A better term for it is "power-sharing". Both agreements are power-sharing agreements, but you can have variations in power-sharing. What is striking about both agreements is the extent to which political representatives led people towards a deal. They were ahead of public opinion and of what was perceived to be the case with voting opinion. Yes, the negotiations that happened in between the two deals hardened the agreement that was reached at St Andrews, but both cases illustrated the ability of political actors in Northern Ireland to lead the people of Northern Ireland to a power-sharing deal and the fact that they were not so dependent on opinion polls or their perception of public opinion. Rather, they were able to lead to some degree.

Mr O'Toole: That is helpful. I am conscious that others will want to get to the Chamber, so I have just one more question.

Dr Haughey, we have talked about Assembly reform. This Committee is the vehicle through which people agree that it should at least be discussed and considered. Depending on what recommendations the Committee makes, is it theoretically possible for the Committee to come up with a set of recommendations, either directly or via a motion in the Assembly, that result in a mandate to amend the Northern Ireland Act 1998 in specific ways that would then have to be communicated to the UK Government, presumably with the endorsement of the Irish Government? Is that a plausible route for the Committee to take on reform?

Dr Haughey: It is, but you could add a step. The Committee could set the terms of reference for a body of research work in order to give civic society a contributing role. For example, if the Committee wanted to go down the route of having a citizens' assembly, members of the Committee could, first, have discussions with their parties to assure them that the citizens' assembly would be consultative, by which I mean that its recommendations would be non-binding. You would therefore not be signing the house away. You could therefore have a consultative citizens' assembly, with terms of reference set by the Committee. On the basis of the evidence of public opinion, and if parties were convinced that there was sufficient support — I think that there would be public support for some reforms — you could then move on to the next stage and follow the rest of the process that you described. What you are suggesting would be constitutionally legitimate.

Mr O'Toole: It would be constitutionally legitimate to do what I am saying, but you said that we could add in a step. Would that step be necessary, even for what are deemed to be the most moderate reforms? Would we have to go out to the public for everything, or could we say that we will agree on certain moderate things but that major things, such as substantive changes to mandatory coalition, or, more so, substantive changes to designation, would have to go through the public?

Dr Haughey: Going through the public would be a good insurance policy against the argument that you cannot do something because the public may not buy into it. There may be resistance — perhaps even legitimate resistance — on the basis that you cannot play around with the Good Friday Agreement any further without first asking people.

Mr O'Toole: We would probably want any consultation to be strictly time-limited in order to avoid its being open-ended.

Dr Haughey: Absolutely. I am sure that the Committee would to its best to define a limited timescale for doing that.

Mr O'Toole: I have a couple of specific suggestions for future evidence, Chair. Would it be better if I made them now or at the end of the session?

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): It would probably be best to do that towards the end, Matthew, if applicable.

Mr Sheehan: First, I want to ask a general question. Irrespective of what reforms might or might not be brought in, if one of the major parties were to walk — if they were to leave the Executive and the Assembly — could the institutions survive with any credibility?

Professor Tonge: It would be mighty difficult if either of the big two parties were to walk away. That is why, despite the fact that more of the public said that, if the FM or the dFM were to quit, the rights to nominate should go to the next largest party in the bloc, I made the point that there is such a huge difference in the number of MLAs between the DUP and the UUP and between Sinn Féin and the SDLP that it would be difficult, in realpolitik terms, for government to continue. There is no hiding from the fact that that would present a problem. If there were a marginal difference in the number of MLAs between those parties, it would matter far less, but, given the reality of the intra-bloc imbalances, it would be problematic if a party were to quit.

Dr Haughey: I broadly agree with what Jon has said there. The caveat I would add is that, if we reformed TEO, the beauty of that reform would be that it would probably never be used. It would be a strong disincentive for a party to walk away if it knew that the effect of that resignation would not have the same political and institutional consequences that it once did. You are giving up the office, but it will go to someone else. It is not a guarantee, but you are not going to get guarantees in this business. A party might decide that, come hell or high water, they are walking away. It is fine for a party to take that view, but, on any kind of liberal democratic theory, how can we justify that decision's preventing a Government for all of the North for as long as that party wants? It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify that. You could have made the case maybe in the 1990s, in the peace process, that communities needed that reassurance that, if one of them pulled the handbrake, the system would stop, but we are seeing from public opinion evidence that there is a lot of frustration with that. It would be difficult, Pat, absolutely, but I do not think that that is a sufficient reason for us to not consider reform.

Mr Sheehan: We are having this conversation in the context of trying to build sustainability into the institutions, and confidence as well — not just public confidence, but confidence in the Members of this institution. It is not an issue that has been part of your presentation today, but have you explored any possible mechanisms that would enhance the impartiality and independence of the Speaker, for example? Because we see now — and we are only really learning these things — that the Speaker can have considerable power in the institutions. The Speaker has the power to accept or reject amendments to legislation and does not have to give any explanation or rationale for that. We had a recent example with the school uniform Bill. We had an unprecedented situation where the Speaker rejected Committee amendments. Certainly, the data that is held only goes back to 2011, but it showed that it has never happened before, and, having spoken to people who were here prior to that, I understand that it has never happened as long as these institutions have been up and running. Is it not archaic for a Speaker to have such power, and should some accountability mechanism not be brought in there? For example, a regular review mechanism, independent oversight or the Speaker having to produce a small written explanation or rationale about why amendments were accepted or rejected? The bigger issue is that a Speaker, effectively, has the power to shape any piece of legislation passing through the Assembly. If the Speaker is not impartial, that, in itself, reduces confidence in the institutions. Have you given any thought to any of that, or what are your views on the conversation we are having?

Dr Haughey: I will pass over to Jon in a second. I have not thought about it in any great detail, Pat. Generally speaking, discretionary power is the kind of jewel in the crown of any speakership in a parliamentary setting. You will find a lot of discretionary power. You are kind of delving into the black box of speakerships in parliamentary systems, where, more often than not, Speakers will give some rationale for their decision, but it is done as a courtesy to the House. You will struggle to find anywhere where it is in Standing Orders, for example, that the Speaker must justify their decision. I could have a look, if it would be helpful, to see what some of the regulations are in other consociational or power-sharing systems vis-à-vis the Speaker. In our power-sharing system, the speakership takes on a bit more symbolic power, and there are certain power-sharing contexts where the speakership is allocated to particular communities because it is seen as a confidence-building measure for that person to hold that position. I do not have a definitive answer to that, Pat, to be honest. Discretionary power is built into the speakership, but, in some parliamentary settings, it is seen as a courtesy to the House to explain decisions.

Mr Sheehan: It would be interesting to hear if there is any international good practice where there is some accountability of the Speaker's role. Have a look to see if you can find that out.

Professor Tonge: I have two very quick points. I agree that the independence of the Speaker is an important point. To echo Sean's point, yes, they have an enormous amount of autonomy. I would change the method of how a Speaker is elected to a big supermajority of 70%. You made a point about who the independent overseer would be. Who would appoint the independent overseer to monitor what the Speaker gets up to? That would be crucial. Would they command sufficient confidence on a cross-party basis to monitor the Speaker, as it were? That is an important point.

Dr Haughey: The Assembly Commission could do something like that, but, as I said, I will look into it, Pat.

Mr Sheehan: I was just throwing it out there for discussion.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Before I bring in Michelle, I think Matthew said that there was overwhelming evidence for substantial reform. Maybe you did not use the word "substantial", Matthew. My take on your evidence is that there is overwhelming support for reform, but is it substantial, moderate tweaking or major reform? I am right in that interpretation, am I not? Yes? You talked about low-hanging fruit in TEO, and you particularly mentioned some aspects. Would you refer to the removal of the ability for an FM/DFM to transfer to another party within the same bloc, for example, as major or minor reform?

Dr Haughey: How about medium, Chair?

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I am genuinely interested, because it goes to the nub of it.

Professor Tonge: I would say that that would be major. Retitling is minor; changing the rules would be major.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): And if you were changing the rules further to say that it did not even stay within the same designation and that it could go to, say, the next biggest party, it would be major.

Professor Tonge: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Just out of interest.

Dr Haughey: For clarity, removing designations would certainly be major, but if you were keeping the designations it would be more moderate, because you are still looking at the TEO within the prism of power-sharing between unionism and nationalism.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Do you share that opinion, Professor Tonge?

Professor Tonge: I think I would echo that, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Michelle, I think you are the last on the list, unless John wants to come in.

Mr Stewart: Just briefly.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I will bring in John after Michelle.

Mrs Guy: You are not saving the best to last, then.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Do you want to forfeit? [Laughter.]

Mrs Guy: Thank you for the evidence. I am an Alliance MLA, so obviously I am sold on the idea of reform. It seems from the evidence that the public are also broadly sold on that as a concept, so I am interested in how we get it done. You talked about the need for the parties to come together and lead on that, as opposed to waiting for Government or external intervention. The concern there is that those who hold the vetoes and have an interest in keeping things as they are will not consent to that. How do we move things forward in that context?

Professor Tonge: It will have to come from yourselves, because, let us be honest, the two Governments are not interested in reforming the institutions. The Irish Government talked about it, and the current Taoiseach has mentioned it, but it has disappeared way down the agenda. The previous UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said, "We need to wait for the institutions to be up and running and then we will reform them". Obviously, he lost office. I attended numerous speeches by the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, last week at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. There was no mention whatsoever of reform of these institutions. You can take from that that it will have to be movement from within, with the possibility of using the public via a citizen's assembly, as Sean outlined.

Dr Haughey: That is where you will get momentum, Michelle. It is not a guarantee. You could go to the public, you could have different mechanisms for facilitating civic input, and you could find that there is a lack of consensus on some of the bigger questions. That is what we found with the citizens' assembly on whether we should keep mandatory coalition. It is going to be a challenge to budge the two bigger parties on this question. That is not an insult to either party. It is in their interests. From a party political perspective, if you are enjoying a position of power within the institutions, there is no incentive to change, because there is uncertainty with that. However, one of the persuaders can be public opinion.

Mrs Guy: I am interested in the idea of civic engagement as a way to progress this. For people to participate in some kind of forum or mechanism like that, they want to have confidence that they will be listened to and are not just there to tick a box. How do you ensure that people have confidence that, if they give their time to contribute to that, it will actually have some meaning?

Dr Haughey: We know from the research that the exercises in and of themselves are good for democracy, because people think that they are being consulted. You are absolutely right, Michelle: they want to see outcomes from that. If there are a stage 2 and stage 3, meaning that the results of the citizens' assembly go back to the AERC, which takes it to the wider Assembly, and there will be party political conventions on it or whatever —. If people can see a process, even if it is not going to lead to the outcome that they want, I still think that they will find it a meaningful exercise. However, you are right that it cannot just be a tick-box exercise. If you do some of these exercises, some parties may be surprised that the wriggle room that they thought was not there is there, and that might help to add momentum. I repeat the point that we should not assume that we will do these exercises and get the end result of, "Right, back to the drawing board and significantly redesign these institutions". People might say, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't". The point is that you have to ask them. We are now almost 30 years on from the blueprint of 1998, and, as I said in my opening remarks, institutions should not stand still.

Mrs Guy: Do you think that it is in the gift of this Committee, in the context of what we are doing here, to try and set something like that up to inform the work that we are doing?

Dr Haughey: The Committee could. I think that this Committee should be the engine of that conversation. It could set the terms of reference for a citizens' assembly, for example. So, yes.

Mrs Guy: Interesting. You have made the point that it is not unusual for democratic institutions to reform, evolve and change, so what are the implications or results of institutions not reforming?

Professor Tonge: That is a good question that I need to think more deeply about. The other devolved institutions have reformed. The have been accompanied by very serious momentum to become much more developed institutions, and, as I mentioned in the case of Wales, that was from a low base. I am trying to think of an institution that has not reformed.

Dr Haughey: Sorry to interrupt, Jon. Jon is absolutely right about comparing the other devolved institutions, because they have had less to grapple with. Other power-sharing systems — this point needs to be made — are known for being difficult to reform. They are very difficult to reform for two reasons. One is that you have baked-in vetoes and guarantees in the political system, and that can create institutional resistance to reform. The second reason is public opinion. The public might think, especially if the period of violence has been recent, "Do not tinker with those institutions because they have been preserving peace, and, if we tinker with those institutions, it might threaten the peace and we might see a resurgence of violence". I do not think that you will get that from the public opinion side of things here. If nothing happens, it will be because of institutional or political resistance. However, there are consociations that have been very resistant to reform. Look at Lebanon, for example. Lebanon is broadly similar.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I hope that you are not suggesting a Committee visit, by the way. [Laughter.]

Dr Haughey: Certainly not, Chair.

Lebanon has been very resistant to even very minor reforms, and that is getting closer and closer to the abyss, whereas you can also look at the Brussels-Capital Region (BCR). There are seven Parliaments in Belgium. It is absolutely fascinating. I could talk about it all day, members. I am not talking about Belgium in general — not the federal Parliament, which is the one that stole the Guinness world record from this place. We should have got the Guinness world record for going the longest period in peacetime without a Government, but Belgium got it because it has a federal Parliament. However, the BCR consociation, the Brussels city region — it is about a million people — is an example of a very successful consociational system. It has gradually evolved and reformed itself repeatedly over the decades, and it has very specific mechanisms for different types of reform. That system is held in high regard compared to the other consociational Parliaments in Belgium.

Mrs Guy: I have one final question, if that is OK. I obviously feel compelled to raise this: the cross-community votes and designations, and the fact that my vote counts for less than the votes of other Members. It is that common practice in other power-sharing institutions? Is that something that happens? Can you speak to the ethics of that in a democracy, that you can be elected equally but your vote does not count equally?

Dr Haughey: Paul, do you want to come in on that?

Professor Dixon: No, no. You guys go ahead. I am enjoying it. [Laughter.]

Professor Tonge: Bosnia is the overwhelming, glaring example there. It is a similar system in many ways. They tried to form —.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Sorry, where?

Professor Tonge: Bosnia. Centrist parties there get excluded from the system.

Dr Haughey: In Lebanon, particular positions are reserved exclusively for Maronite Christians, Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims — speakerships and so on — whereas ours is a more flexible system. We do not say that the First Minister must be a nationalist and the deputy First Minister must be a unionist. There is some flexibility there. However, it is a point worth making that, when it comes to the most important issues in this place — the election of the Speaker, the passing of a Budget — the votes of other MLAs count for less than those of nationalists and unionists. I have taken the cross-community vote question off my list of essays for my university students in Liverpool, because 90% of the students were answering the question. They find it quite bizarre that, when you get to those really important votes, you do not get one man, one vote. For a place like Northern Ireland, where there was not one man, one vote for so long, to have a system now that does not guarantee one man, one vote or one woman, one vote on some issues — people in Britain are quite interested.

Mrs Guy: I think we do not see the irony of that, and that is especially true of the people blocking it. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Mr Stewart: Gents, thank you very much for coming along. I really enjoyed the evidence session. We could hold a one-week conference on this and not get the result, rather than a one-hour evidence session. It has been really useful in the limited time that we have.

Just from my point of view, it seems that any time that we have seen change to date has been in periods of crisis: 2007, 2014, 2020. Invariably, it is to placate those causing the crisis, and those changes are never in the best interests of Northern Ireland or this Assembly. The only good bit of change that I have seen — Matthew referred to it — was the private Member's Bill brought forward by John McCallister to bring in an Opposition. That has been some progress.

You talked about surveying the public and the will to see change. We can debate whether that is meaningful, major or minor change. Whatever it may be, what is the belief among the public that change is actually capable of being delivered by this place? No disrespect to my colleagues on this Committee, but any change is probably going to come through this forum. With the greatest respect to the two biggest parties, if they decide that it is not in their interests to move forward with any terms of reference or any movement forward, even consulting the public, nothing will leave this Committee. With that in mind, where do we get to then? That is my first question.

My second question is to you, Professor Tonge. Regarding the public's feedback on revenue-raising powers, and the lack of appetite for that, do you sense from the evidence that that is because they do not trust the stability of this institution or they do not trust the ability of the people in it to deliver effective and meaningful tax-raising operations?

Professor Tonge: On revenue raising, it is probably because they just do not want to pay, to be quite honest, more than anything. We asked that —.

Mr Stewart: They are all paying anyway. [Laughter.]

Professor Tonge: Yes. I look at the evidence ruefully as I paid my £400 water bill. We asked two specific questions on that at the general election last year. We asked whether people would support prescription charges, and only 7% supported the reintroduction, as it would be, of prescription charges. The percentage who wanted water charges was 3%. Therefore, it is a brave political party that goes gung-ho advocating local revenue raising via those two means. It is just a fear of what the cost would be, rather than necessarily —. There is a fear of revenue-raising powers being accredited to this institution, but that is a slightly separate question, as against the specifics on water bills or prescription charges.

For the first half of your question, I turn to Sean.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): This is our stats man.

Dr Haughey: We have not asked, John, to be honest. "Even if you support reform, do you think that the parties will deliver it?" There probably is a recognition of realpolitik that the parties that require convincing are the two largest parties and, by virtue of their size, they have power within the institutions. However, I will not knock the DUP and Sinn Féin on their open-mindedness to reform. This Committee comes from a reform that was supported by the DUP and Sinn Féin. You can budge the dial a little bit, but, whether we are just getting a bunch of academics who are saying that there should be reform or political leaders who are saying that there should be reform, I think that we need to redirect the conversation. If you have a body of public opinion research that is suggestive of reform, you can put the challenge to opponents of reform to ask why they do not want reform, even when we have done a, b and c, which has suggested that that is where people want to go. In the absence of that kind of civic voice, it is a harder case to make, but we will do our best.

Mr Stewart: Yes, absolutely. That is really useful. Thank you.

Ms Ennis: My question was more or less teased out by you, Chair, and by Pat. For the avoidance of doubt for John, we are very much up for looking at this.

Mr Stewart: I was just saying that you could; I am not saying that you will. I will be interested to hear that.

Ms Ennis: We are here in good faith, and we are here to look at the evidence. The evidence that we have received today and to date shows that we still have a lot of homework to do in relation to this. My question is around the notion that, where one of the two largest designations refuses to or does not appoint a First Minister or deputy First Minister, it would move to the next designation or to the next largest party. Even in today's conversation, there has been some — "disagreement" is maybe a strong word; difference of opinion — around whether that constitutes a moderate or a more major reform. I cannot move past the notion, pointed out by Dr Haughey, that the public would prefer it to go the next largest party in that designation. However, if that were based on the reality of the numbers now, what legitimacy, if any, would that sort of coalition of the willing, if you want to call it that, have, legally and politically, to function? I think that we need to tease that out. There are a lot of unanswered questions for me about what legitimacy that would have, bearing in mind the notion of parity of esteem that very much underpins the Good Friday Agreement and these institutions. How would that be protected and achieved? Honestly, what legitimacy would any sort of coalition of the willing actually have?

Dr Haughey: I think that it would be an affront to parity of esteem if you were saying to a party, "You cannot be in the Government". However, if you are saying, "You can be in the Government, but you don't have to. If you want to walk away, you can walk away", from a public perspective, you can see democratic merit in that. It is not exclusionary in the sense that a particular party has been thrown out of the Government; it has decided to walk away. If the composition of the coalition is seen to be less legitimate, that is on the party that walked away. It decided to do that, and, if the nomination rights pass to someone else within the designation, it does not matter about the number of seats that that party has in the Assembly. That person is the First Minister or the deputy First Minister, and they rule the roost alongside the other person. The fact that they have a smaller number of MLAs and perhaps account for fewer Ministries in the d’Hondt Executive —. They are still ruling the roost at the top. That designation is still getting a lot of power, regardless of the fact that the person who is appointed that Minister has fewer MLAs in the Assembly. It would not be ideal. The ideal scenario is that people take the position to which they are entitled and work in the Executive for the full mandate rather than walk away, but there is a question mark about that. We have never had that scenario in the North, so there are unknowns about it, for sure.

Professor Tonge: There are competing cases for legitimacy between party interests and bloc interests here. We genuinely did not know what to expect when we put the question. We phrased it as, "If the First Minister or deputy First Minister resigns, what should happen?" The first option was for the post to transfer to the next largest party from the same bloc, and 34% said "Yes". Nationalists and unionists tended to prefer that option; it was a comfort for them to think, "If a party from our bloc walks out, then at least we have the comfort of the next one down in that bloc". Whereas those who are neither nationalist or unionist tended to prefer the second option, which was only supported by 20% overall. It said that the post should transfer to the next largest party, regardless of whether the party is unionist, nationalists or neither. So there are divisions. Unionists and nationalists are still thinking in bloc terms, and "neither" are quite happy for party to take precedence over blocs. That 20% is not much higher than the 16% percent who said that the Executive has ended and there should be a new Assembly election, and there are some who say that the Assembly and the Executive should just be abolished.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): So no change of that category, and the status quo stays as is — what was the figure?

Professor Tonge: The third option is that the Executive has ended and there should be a new Assembly election; 16% went for that. There was another 7%, rounded up, who said that the Executive and the Assembly should be abolished if the parties quit.

Dr Haughey: The TUV position.

Mr Sheehan: If that system was introduced, it would have further implications. For the sake of argument, let us say that Sinn Féin walked out, and it had 27 seats, and the SDLP had 10 or 12 seats. It would create, on a good day —. [Laughter.]

Mr Stewart: I do not see it happening.

Mr Sheehan: It would mean a change in the make-up of the Ministers in the Executive.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): The d'Hondt would not run for one post; it would be for more. ]

Mr Sheehan: It is not something that would happen in isolation. There would be further implications.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I found that to be a really interesting presentation, and members got a lot from it. I thank the three of you. I said at the beginning of this that the Committee has to be realistic about what is achievable in its scope because there is such a difference of opinion in what constitutes major and minor reform, particularly with regard to community designations and cross-community voting. There is a lot on the plate. It is not a takeaway, because I actually think that this has been very useful, but if this Committee came to a set of recommendations, on a simple majority basis, that did not have buy-in from the major players, whether that is Sinn Féin, the DUP or the other parties, would it have the credibility to go to the next stages if we decided terms of reference or whatnot? I am genuinely interested, because, at the very heart of this — you did mention it — is that, if it does not have the buy-in of the local political parties, it is difficult to see progress. It touches on what John, Sinéad and Pat said..

Professor Tonge: I would strongly suggest that there would have to be near unanimity across the Committee for things to move.

Dr Haughey: OK. I would go under unanimity, because we need to be cautious about inertia — saying that it is too complicated or there is not enough buy-in. The Committee does not need to commit to recommendations for reform yet. As I said to Matthew — we are not trying to poach jobs; the Assembly can do its own research — there is space for the Assembly to do something here in terms of public consultation or civic input. Based on those exercises, when the Committee is in possession of that knowledge, there might be a more fruitful conversation.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): I have always believed that we should never underestimate the power of small gains, and that thought stays with me when I look at how this place operates. However, there is a difference of opinion on so many of those issues, as your polling as indicated. What would be very helpful to the Committee —. Obviously condensing a lot of this — the findings in particular, and and statistics — has been very helpful in teasing out the nuances of public opinions.

Professor Dixon, do you want to add any closing comments? I know that we have been listening to a lecture from these two.

Professor Dixon: I am fine. I am very interested to listen to these guys.

The Chairperson (Mr Buckley): Thank you so much, each one of you. We look forward to engaging with you further as the process continues. Thank you, and safe travels.