Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): My hope is that Hansard will cover this session retrospectively, because we cannot formally agree to Hansard's recording it. I assume that every member of the Committee is more than happy for Hansard to do so, but we will have to agree to that once we are quorate, for the sake of process.

We have three panels of stakeholders with us today, which we will hopefully get through promptly to give them all their spake. There are two panels from the humanist community and one panel representing independent celebrants.

I welcome Boyd Sleator, the coordinator of Northern Ireland Humanists (NIH), and Stefanie Onopiko. I hope that I have pronounced that correctly.

Ms Stefanie Onipko (Northern Ireland Celebrant Network Services): Onipko.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): My apologies, Stefanie.

Ms Onipko: It is all right.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Stefanie is a Northern Ireland celebrant and the Northern Ireland celebrant network services coordinator. Is that your correct job title?

Ms Onipko: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): I invite Boyd to make an opening statement, after which Committee members will ask questions. As always, members should indicate should they wish to ask a question.

Mr Boyd Sleator (Northern Ireland Humanists): Thank you, Chair, Deputy Chair and members for having us. Northern Ireland Humanists is a section of Humanists UK, and we work alongside the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI). We have 6,500 members and supporters in Northern Ireland. Stefanie has been a celebrant for four years, and she will say something shortly about what that means and involves.

I will start by saying plainly that we welcome the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill and want to see it be passed in this session. Nine years ago, we supported a humanist couple to go through court to be allowed to marry in a way that reflected what they believe. They won, and, since then, belief marriage has operated here on a temporary footing, with more than 5,000 couples having had legal humanist weddings. The Bill finally puts humanist weddings on a permanent statutory footing, and we are grateful to the Department of Finance for introducing it.

Although we welcome the Bill, we have reviewed it carefully and propose changes in order to make it as strong and as effective as possible. Getting it right from the outset should be a priority for all of us. We know that the Committee is also taking evidence on having independent commercial providers included in the Bill. We are concerned about that but will not say anything more in our opening remarks, given that they sit outside the Bill's remit currently.

First, I will briefly say more about Northern Ireland Humanists. We are a part of Humanists UK, which was established in 1896. We provide speakers for schools, alongside educational materials, and we offer training for student teachers at Queen's University and Stranmillis University College. We provide pastoral care at Maghaberry prison and for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, where two of our main pastoral care providers are celebrants.

We have local groups across the UK. Bangor Humanists is currently the most active group in the UK. It has a curry club, a walking group and philosophy nights, and it works on projects in the local community. We campaign for a more secular and inclusive version of Northern Ireland, and we have been involved in bringing about positive change through lots of Northern Ireland legislation, not just on marriage but on women's reproductive rights, education and freedom of speech. Although ceremonies are a very important part of our work, they are far from the majority of it. They are only one of the many elements of how we contribute to the community, as per our charitable remit.

The question that the Bill needs to answer is this: how does the law tell the difference between a belief community that conduct marriages and those who act outside of those means for commercial purposes. At the moment, the Bill cannot do that. Under the Bill, a group needs almost nothing in order to be registered as a belief body. Clause 3 defines "religious or belief body" as "an organised group of people", one of whose principal objects:

That is it. There is no requirement for such a body to have existed for any length of time, to be a charity or to do anything other than provide weddings. There is no requirement for it to meet in any meaningful way, which is incredibly important to any belief community.

The Department has said that the Bill replicates the Scottish approach. Unfortunately, it does not. The Scottish definition requires a belief body to have a "principal object" and to meet "regularly for that purpose". Those words are in the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014. Northern Ireland is about to adopt a weaker test than that of the jurisdiction that it says it is copying, and Scotland already sets the bar too low. It is now consulting on tightening its own legislation. What happens when the bar is that low is not hypothetical. A whistle-blower from National Records of Scotland (NRS) gave evidence to 'The Sunday Post' last October about groups obtaining authorisation while describing themselves as humanist on very little evidence: groups with no followers, no meetings and aggressive commercial marketing, despite a statutory prohibition on solemnising marriage for profit. In one case, a celebrant had been removed by an organisation for serious misconduct, including failing to return a couple's money after not providing their ceremony, but was simply able to join another organisation.

We see the same thing here. We are aware of groups in Northern Ireland with no visible activity beyond selling ceremonies or providing training. One self-described humanist group says that it is:

yet it has 13 celebrants doing hundreds of ceremonies each year. We think that you should ask everyone else who is giving evidence today how many members they have, how many celebrants they have and how many ceremonies they have conducted in the past year. In our case, we have 6,500 members and supporters, have 62 celebrants carrying out weddings and have conducted 1,000 ceremonies a year from 2004 to 2025.

Problems also exist with religious officiants. We know of a Northern Ireland officiant who is registered through a Church whose public marketing makes no mention of Christianity and offers what is described as:

We know of a religious organisation that charges around €6,000 for an online officiant course that includes 11 lessons in marketing and advertising in a jurisdiction where solemnising marriage for profit is unlawful. That is all in contrast to what we do at Northern Ireland Humanists. I now pause briefly and ask Celebrant Stef to come in.

Ms Onipko: I have been a humanist celebrant in Northern Ireland for four years and have conducted 80 weddings. I am also a celebrant network support coordinator here, supporting 70 accredited celebrants. I am a school speaker and a teacher trainer. I also participate in my local group, Bangor Humanists. I became a humanist celebrant as a way of furthering my own humanist beliefs. I grew up going to a Church of Ireland church most Sundays. I started questioning my beliefs only when I went to university in England, where I met people of all faiths and all beliefs. Then, I went to a humanist funeral. My experience of that is that it was entirely about the man himself. The funeral was really personal, really warm and a true celebration of his life. I did not know that a funeral could be like that. It was the first time that I had heard the word "humanist", and it turned out to be the name for what I already believed. I came to humanism through that ceremony, but ceremonies are only one part of what Humanists UK does. It trains and accredits its celebrants. It requires celebrants to undergo ongoing professional development and holds all celebrants to published standards. It also runs school visits, teacher training, pastoral care and local groups. Only one of the roles that I have with Humanists UK involves marrying people.

For ceremonies, I will typically spend 35 to 40 hours on a single wedding ceremony. That is a full working week for two people whom I have usually never met before. While I am their celebrant, I meet them several times. I write a brand new script for each couple for every ceremony. I usually go to the venue beforehand so that I can have little recce to see where the light falls and how to choreograph the ceremony in the best possible way so that people know where to stand. I run a rehearsal, and, on their wedding day, the couple is married by somebody whom they have come to know and who shares what they believe. That is not just a service style but the belief itself. Humanists hold that the meaning in a life is not handed to us and that we make the meaning of life. A humanist wedding therefore has to be built out of whom the particular people getting married are, because anything generic is a direct contradiction of what the wedding is meant to express. When I do the work, I am not providing a product but doing the thing that my beliefs are about, as a manifestation of my beliefs, which are shared by the people whom I am marrying.

I will tell you how I was able to do that. I applied to Humanists UK to be a celebrant. I was not guaranteed a place. I had to have some rigorous interviews. I got on to the training programme, which runs for three months and includes residential sessions, lengthy coursework and a mentor, whom I observed conducting real ceremonies. Not everyone who starts the training is accredited at the end of it. I could not legally or practically operate as a celebrant until I was accredited. Since then, I have carried professional indemnity insurance, am bound by a code of conduct and do continuing professional development (CPD) every year to keep my accreditation. There is a complaints procedure that couples and venues can use against me. If I were to fall below the standard, the organisation would work with me to fix that. If that were to fail, the organisation would remove me, and I would not be a Northern Ireland Humanists celebrant any more.

All of that takes a lot of time and effort. Wedding celebrants with Humanists UK do the training because, when they book a humanist wedding, a couple are trusting that the person in front of them has been through it. They are trusting us with their whole wedding day.

Mr Sleator: Thank you, Stef. At the Bill's Second Stage, the Minister stated that the framework can be made agile through regulations if practices get out of hand. First, that is already happening. Secondly, Scotland has had the same power since 2014, yet it has taken over a decade to consider using it. If I may say so, our start-and-stop politics in Northern Ireland does not give me confidence that we will see those changes made after the fact. The Bill has been delayed for six years, and we have had three temporary extensions to it already. My confidence in getting the policy right after the fact is therefore very low, so it is incredibly important that we get it right now.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): To clarify, Boyd, do you mean that, when the Department states, "We will pass the Bill as it is, and, when they are produced, the regulations will clarify what 'celebrant' means", you do not have confidence that that will happen?

Mr Sleator: That is correct. The Bill is not strong enough as it stands, and trying to make changes after the fact will not work. As I said, Scotland has waited 10 years.

We therefore advocate a Dublin model, including criteria to be considered by the General Register Office (GRO) to allow a belief group to conduct weddings. Among other things, we suggest that belief groups should not be primarily about conducting weddings. Such organisations should be operating, including conducting weddings, for a set period and be registered as a charity. Those requirements already exist in similar jurisdictions. If the Committee wishes, we can write to it more fully with that information.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thank you. We need to do the needful and agree formally that Hansard will report the session. We were not quorate at the beginning in order to do so, but we now are. I presume that members are content that Hansard record the session.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Thank you, Boyd and Stef, for coming here to give us evidence. You have given an overall welcome to the Bill but have made clear your position that there should be tighter criteria for humanist celebrants. Before we get on to that, will you clarify the basis on which you have been lawfully operating for the past number of years? It was a court judgement that has allowed you to.

Mr Sleator: That is correct. The case of Laura and Eunan O'Kane that we took went as far as the Supreme Court. At that point, we were operating under temporary legislation that had been in place, waiting for "belief" to be written into the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill. We sit here having had Stormont collapse a couple of times since our case took place and with the Bill not having moved any further forward.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): What criteria that are not in the Bill as drafted should be included?

Mr Sleator: We have produced a briefing paper that we can send to all MLAs.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Yes, I have it in front of me.

Mr Sleator: Broadly, at the minute, under the legislation, any group can become a humanist celebrant group that offers ceremonies. There is nothing that states that it has to offer the community anything else. I am a full-time, paid employee of Humanists UK. I do not carry out ceremonies. I am not trained to do so. We conduct a whole lot of other work, however. We work in Maghaberry prison, where we saw over 500 individual inmates last year. More recently, Pippa Swan has been made the first humanist bank chaplain at the Belfast Trust. Ceremonies are only one small part of our work. We do so much else. The current legislation is meant to stop ceremonies being just for commercial reasons, yet we are seeing lots of organisations doing nothing outwardly other than conducting ceremonies.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. Say a bit more than that. Can you give us some examples? You do not have to name individual organisations, although you can if you want.

Mr Sleator: One of the groups that the Committee will see later today has a website on which there is no ability to become a member. People cannot even join that group as a member. The website's home page is just a list of its celebrants. In fact, at the bottom, it states, "You can become a celebrant". The website does not tell us anything else about what the group does or anything about its beliefs.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Its ethos.

Mr Sleator: Similarly, a witness who will be here later today has their own website.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): May I just check whether you are referring to Humanists Together?

Mr Sleator: Humanists Together, yes. I believe that one of its representatives has a website that makes no mention of humanism whatsoever. It just states that they are a celebrant. I make the same argument about us as I do about religious weddings, which is that we want to ensure that they are done not only for commercial reasons. We are a philosophical belief organisation. I am not saying that those people who are offering such ceremonies are not humanists. What I am saying is that the organisation that they operate on behalf of does not seem to be providing anything for humanists other than ceremonies.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): To tease this out and to allow you to air your position, I will ask a question. I appreciate that Humanists UK and Northern Ireland Humanists are serious belief organisations, but the people who are getting married, be it the bride and groom, the bride and bride or whomever, may or may not be particularly engaged with humanism as a belief system. They may simply want an alternative to a religious marriage. Does it make much difference to them? That is in no way to diminish the importance of the work that Humanists UK does, but, from their perspective, is there a material difference? You talked at length, Stefanie, about the work that you do to curate and prepare for a ceremony. How does what is, I suppose, a more liberal or relaxed model differ from that?

Mr Sleator: Stefanie can perhaps answer that, but we offer weddings for non-religious people and for people who are humanists. We also have weddings where one of the couple will be a humanist and the other may be religious. One person will hold deeper convictions, I suspect. I will hand over to Stef to answer that.

Ms Onipko: You asked about the amount of time spent preparing. It is hard for me to speak to that on behalf of any other celebrant, but, for me, because we are trained in a certain way and know what our ceremonies should include, preparation takes a long time. A lot of the couples with whom I work choose to work with me because of the values that I hold and because of all the other roles that I have in the organisation. That is quite important.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): In that sense, you are regulated. Do you think that there should be a named organisation, such as Humanists UK or Northern Ireland Humanists, so that, just as when people have their wedding in a Presbyterian church or a Catholic church, they know which organisation they are using? That is, I think, set out in very old marital law. Should that be the case in the Bill? Should it specify a humanist organisation?

Mr Sleator: We will come back to you on that, but I do not believe that that would be our position. Our position is that, for the GRO, the legislation has to define "belief group" and that the definition has to include more than it carries out weddings for commercial purposes. As long as people stick to those rules — there are organisations that do so — we would not have any problem with such organisations carrying out weddings. It is about making sure that the industry does not become commercialised.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you both very much for being here. I am sorry that I was a little bit late. I was at another Committee meeting.

As a person with a strong faith, I always like to hear from people whose conviction comes through when they speak. I very much hear how much both of you care about the issue, and I appreciate your submission. I have been working on an amendment to the definition of the organisations that can qualify to carry out belief marriage. The definition is currently too broad, so I hope to be able to tighten it up. Given what you have said, including in your submission, do you agree with me in that regard?

Mr Sleator: One hundred per cent. We would happily reach out to you and work with you on that. We have been saying since day 1, "The definition needs to be tightened up now. Amend it and make sure that it's correct from the off". As I said, I worry about Stormont's possibly collapsing again or the Bill's not passing in the time frame in which it is meant to. If the Bill were not to be amended, that would allow more commercialised providers to come in. As I mentioned earlier, I know that independent commercial providers are not included in the Bill currently, but you will hear today from a specifically commercial organisation, which, as far as I know, operates only in England at present. Such ceremonies are not philosophical belief marriages and therefore should not be part of the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill, which is about religion and belief.

Ms Forsythe: You make the really valid point that, although some people have much stronger religious beliefs than others, that should not affect what is in the Bill. We are saying that a belief organisation should be able to carry out such ceremonies but that the definition of what a belief organisation is is currently too broad and should therefore be tightened up a wee bit.

Mr Harvey: Thank you, Stefanie and Boyd. Do you agree that the Bill as it stands would permit organisations that neither operate nor are registered in Northern Ireland in any shape or form to be used, and if that were permissible, would you be concerned?

Mr Sleator: If it is a commercial organisation, yes. We are a section of Humanists UK, which has its offices in England, but we have a committee, a big team and lots of volunteers here. I would have no issue with a humanist organisation having a team based here to carry out weddings. That would not bother me. One of the groups that will meet you later this afternoon — I cannot remember its name — is based solely in England, however. Even the people who will give evidence are based in England. They do not carry out ceremonies here. I would therefore be reluctant to have organisations that are based in just England registering here and being able to carry out weddings on any sort of commercial basis.

Mr Harvey: Do you feel that the Dublin model should be used as part of the legislation, or are there any elements of its criteria that you would amend?

Mr Sleator: The Dublin model is probably one of the stronger models. That is the one that we would go to. One thing that I will say about the Dublin model, however, is that it stipulates that secular organisations cannot campaign. That is wholly inappropriate, even in the sense of which organisations can campaign in the Republic of Ireland on different issues. The Humanist Association of Ireland was blocked from being able to campaign, while the Catholic Church and other religious organisations were allowed to. We are happy with pretty much all the bits of the Dublin model, other than that. Ultimately, in some ways, that forced the Humanist Association of Ireland to become very specific and offer ceremonies alone. As I said, that is not what we are. We do lots of other work. Even our pastoral care work involves some campaigning, such as to try to get people to understand that there are non-religious people in hospitals. Even having humanist marriages required a campaign.

Mr Kingston: Thank you both for your attendance. As you will gather, our main concern is to ensure that we are upholding the solemnity of the marriage ceremony, so that it does not become almost an extension of a stag night or a hen night, and to stop the commercialisation of a ceremony that is seen as a serious occasion and part of a happy day. Obviously, there is plenty of celebration at a wedding. Stefanie, you clearly love your job, and that comes across in what you are saying. How is your work different from that of a celebrant in a civil ceremony in a city hall and so on? Is it primarily the time that you spend with a person getting to know them?

Ms Onipko: Yes. It is deeply personalised and completely bespoke to every couple, whereas a registrar in a city hall, for example, would usually give you maybe four options of vows, and you choose the one best suited to you. It would be a short ceremony of maybe 15 minutes and it would not include anything personal, so no storytelling. You could maybe include non-religious readings. I think that city hall registrars are now offering handfasting, which is the tying of the knot, for some ceremonies. As humanist celebrants, we usually offer a ceremony that is at least 30 minutes long, but we tailor it to whatever the couple wants. One couple might say that 20 minutes is great, and another might say, "An hour, please. Put it all in: all the bells and whistles", and we will adapt what we do to what they would like to see in their ceremony, so it is completely bespoke. Usually, a large part of the ceremony is celebrating the journey that the couple have been on, so we tell their story from their first point of connection and the seed being planted at the start of their journey to where they have got to on their wedding day. We celebrate all that they have achieved together and look forward to the future. We paint a picture of the journey that they have been on. It is engaging, enlightening and lovely for the couple, but also for the guests, because often guests are not privy to some of that information or have forgotten it because the couple have been together for such a long time. We bring that back to life. It is a lovely celebration.

You talked about solemnity, and there is absolutely a place for that. You cannot have stag- or hen-do vows, and I would argue that there is nothing like that going on in our ceremonies. However, a lot of couples do want the joy that they have built and the joy that they feel in their love to be there, and we create joyful ceremonies for them. If you have ever been to a humanist ceremony or know people who have, one word that comes up a lot is "joyful". Another word that comes up a lot is "relaxed". The ceremony sets the tone not just for the day ahead but for their marriage, so it is important for me that we tailor it to the couple. Most couples are looking for that type of feeling.

Mr Kingston: I have been at weddings, and it is becoming more common for people to want to have their entire wedding day at one venue. As someone of faith, I like to see a wedding taking place in a church — a place of faith — but obviously people make their individual choices, and a range of choices are available. Boyd, you said that practices were getting out of hand, if I heard you correctly. Will you expand on that? Are we talking about the potential for that to happen?

Mr Sleator: Since the temporary legislation came into play, we have had an influx of people saying that they are humanist celebrants. One example that I gave was of a minister from a Christian organisation advertising himself as carrying out what he calls "close-to-humanist weddings". That just feels incredibly strange to me. That would be like me saying to you, "I can do your child's wedding. I'll add in some Christian bits, don't worry, but I am not a Christian". It would be weird for me to carry out a Christian service, because I am not a Christian. Similarly, if a Christian is saying, "I'm going to carry out a humanist service", that is equally disrespectful to the humanist couple, because you are saying, "I'm a humanist, I have these values" when, in fact, you are a minister.

Some of those things are getting out of hand. More and more people are training in this. I want to be clear and say that that does not mean that people who have trained are not humanists. I do not see the organisations for which they are now carrying out the work offering what a humanist organisation should be offering, which is community. It is about other services that we offer and campaigning on the issues that are important to us. All those bits and pieces that we offer, we do not see happening very much outside of ourselves and maybe one or two other groups. Humanism has been organised in Northern Ireland for over 35 years. The Belfast humanist group and the Humanist Association of Northern Ireland existed before we got here. They had been carrying out meetings and meeting regularly. I am sure that, if they had, celebrants, they would fit the bill of being an organisation that could deliver that. However, in the past five or six years, since we took the case and won it, we have seen organisations setting up where it is clear that their sole purpose is to be a commercial service selling ceremonies. That concerns us greatly.

Mr Kingston: I get what you are saying about the need to have a belief body behind a ceremony, and I presume that your group meets that. I think that you have said that. When you conduct a marriage, do you try to keep —. How much do beliefs feature in that? As you said, there will sometimes be people who have religious beliefs but have decided to have a humanist ceremony. Does humanism, as a belief, feature, or, effectively, are you saying that you are trying to keep belief out of it and focus on the individuals and their love?

Ms Onipko: There are two ways to look at this. We look at the couple and their experience, and we think about the guests and their experience. We need to be strict with what we offer. If we know that one individual in a couple is a humanist and the other has a different belief, we cannot include any other faith. Our humanist ceremonies are belief-based as humanist ceremonies. Boyd, I think that I am right in saying that we do not include religion.

Mr Sleator: We would not include prayer. Say, for example, one person in the couple was religious and somebody from their family wanted to give a reading that had a spiritual element to it. I do not think that we would take exception to that, but our humanist celebrants are not religious. They are not going to read out religious elements. Nearly all our ceremonies start with a little bit about it being a humanist ceremony and what that means.

Ms Onipko: That is what I was going to say about the experience for the guests. We are aware that a lot of the guests will have different faiths, and we want to make sure that they know that they are included and that our ceremonies are not anti-religious. They are simply non-religious. Religion does not come into it.

Mr Kingston: It is not atheist as such.

Ms Onipko: Absolutely. At the start of the ceremony, we spend time explaining what a humanist ceremony is and making sure that everyone knows that they are included — it is a space of inclusion, where all beliefs and religions are welcomed — but we also explain that it is a non-religious, humanist ceremony.

Mr Kingston: I have one last question. Maybe the issue on the minimum age has not featured in your response.

Mr Sleator: We have responded to that, and we are happy with the increase.

Mr Kingston: Happy with the proposal?

Mr Sleator: Yes.

Mr Tennyson: Thank you for the evidence so far. I commend your organisation for the work that you have done in ensuring that belief marriage is recognised. That is hugely important for many people in Northern Ireland. We should not underplay the impact — the positive impact — that that has had in our community. I also thank you for your written evidence and for what you have drawn our attention to in respect of family law consultation in Scotland and the requirements that are being considered there. That is really helpful. It is something that the Committee should be exploring with the Department, given that Scotland is a step ahead of us, if you like, in this process.

This question is to check my understanding more than anything else. Is the problem the fact that you have independent celebrants, who have no other means of registration, having to present as belief bodies? Does your organisation have a strong view either way as to whether it would be helpful for us to have a separate regulatory framework for independent celebrants, so that they are not presenting themselves as belief bodies in order to conduct marriages? Do we have a gap in our marriage law that is forcing people to make those representations and decisions?

Mr Sleator: Eóin, you might be right. I will take that back to our team and then write to the Committee to let you know our position. It sounds reasonable, but I would like to have a bit more of a think about whether having another regulatory body would be the right way to go. I suspect that it might be, but let me get back to you on that.

Mr Tennyson: That is appreciated; I understand. Fundamentally, this is about belief. There is a solemnity to that, and there are values behind it. For all the reasons that you outlined — the training, the work that you do to promote your philosophical outlook and the work that you do in the community — I can understand that, from a humanist organisation's perspective, being categorised in the same way as someone who is purely an independent celebrant, not operating on the basis of belief, almost dilutes the work that you are doing. I can also understand, however, that, for an independent celebrant with no other means of registration, it might be tempting to move into that space. We need to consider that really carefully and not disadvantage faith and belief-based organisations because the law does not have a framework to deal with that other category. It is something that I am really interested in.

That was my only question, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Do you want to answer that one, Boyd?

Mr Sleator: As I said to Eóin, I will write to the Committee with our views on that. It is a valid point, and I will take it back to our team.

Dr Aiken: First of all, Boyd, it is good to see you again.

Mr Sleator: Good to see you.

Dr Aiken: As a declaration of interest, my second daughter had a humanist wedding in Scotland. It was extraordinarily joyous, but I do not know about it being stressless, because it was quite stressful for me.

Ms Onipko: I am sure.

Dr Aiken: I just wanted to point out —.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Is the "father of the bride" speech available to view somewhere?

Dr Aiken: Yes, but not to you.

Apologies for coming in late. I was at another Committee meeting. Today seems to be made up of Committee meetings back to back.

I have a further declaration of interest: Boyd came to my office, and we had a long chat. We are in broad agreement on some of the main issues. The key issue seems to be making sure that we have the right people doing the right thing so that the ceremonies do not become less than solemn due to their being used as a commercial opportunity. One issue that I saw, particularly in Scotland, is that it is an industry. Is there a method that we can use or anything specific that we can do to make sure that it does not become an industry here?

Mr Sleator: We mentioned there being rules in the past that an organisation had to follow in order to operate. Having to be a charitable body with a set of policies, or, at the very least, some sort of community interest company or something like that, seems like a no-brainer. Other measures could include the length of time that you have been operating. At the minute, you can still act as a celebrant and offer a ceremony. It might not be legally recognised, but there is no reason why there could not be an organisation that says, "OK. If you want to start doing this, you will initially operate by offering just a ceremony that is not officially recognised. You can do that. When you have been operating for x years, we will bring you in". Show that you are doing other things, like meeting regularly. The Bill refers to meeting for worship, but that could be meeting to forward your philosophical beliefs or to do things within your community. When it comes to what an organisation should be doing, that seems a no-brainer for us. There are lots of things that you could put in place to say, "You have to have been operating for x amount of time. You have to have x members". As an example, Humanists Together, representatives of which you are meeting today, has no opportunity to become a member. For whom does it operate? I recognise that it is set up as a limited company. Again, I make it clear that I am not saying that the people who are part of that organisation are not humanists. It is just about saying, "What is that operation doing outside of offering those ceremonies?".

Dr Aiken: OK. Thanks. Stefanie, do you want to add anything?

Ms Onipko: As a celebrant, I have had to go through a rigorous interview process and rigorous training, and I have to update my CPD every year. I have to do a lot. I am constantly learning and developing, which Humanists UK pushes and challenges me to do. I would like to know that celebrants in other organisations are having that same experience and are having to demonstrate the same rigour in how they train and develop. None of us wants to just —.

Mr Sleator: There is a point that I forgot about. Matthew talked about whether there should be some overarching body that looks at this. We are all now members of Humanists International, which has a broader framework on ceremonies. That only came in quite recently. Humanists International now understands which of the organisations that are offering ceremonies throughout the globe are registered humanist organisations that do other work.

We are part of lots of bodies. We are stringent about how our ceremonies are conducted and how our celebrants conduct themselves. It is about training, continued training and making sure that all the safeguards are in place: the people involved are going out to meet families and everything else, so we want to make sure that everything is above board. For example, when we first started doing ceremonies six or seven years ago, somebody responded on our Facebook page with one star and said, "I attended one of your ceremonies. It was awful". I had to contact the person and say, "Can you let me know who carried it out, and I'll take this back?". It turned out that it was not somebody from our organisation. It impacts on us as a whole if the people who do the ceremonies do not do them well and do things that are upsetting to families. As Stef pointed out, we are not an anti-religious organisation. We are very much in favour of freedom of religion and belief. We never want people who are religious to feel upset, out of place or unwelcome at one of our weddings. Similarly, we do not want couples coming back and saying that a celebrant treated any of their family members in an inappropriate way. All our training relies on our celebrants being able to go out and conduct weddings in an appropriate manner, and I think that they do an amazing job.

Dr Aiken: For the benefit of the Committee, being dyed-in-the-wool Church of Ireland, I asked the celebrant some questions, and she explained to me in some detail the level of training and commitment that was required. We might have differing opinions on the approach, but I came away feeling that that person was not only fully qualified to do it but did it with a degree of solemnity that I thought was particularly appropriate. There you go. That is my personal experience.

Ms Onipko: Boyd mentioned the fact that safeguards are in place for us, but also part of our training is about safeguarding the people whom we meet. Compare that to the group that Boyd mentioned that had 11 sessions on marketing. I would like to know what is in that training.

Mr Sleator: There were 11 sessions on marketing, and nothing was expressed about a philosophical belief idea. It is concerning.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): One of the other risks — some might say that this is a canard, and it is not necessarily to do with a humanist or a philosophical belief — is the idea that celebrants may set themselves up as, to use a spurious example, Jedi or Man United supporters, which is a very problematic belief to have, based on recent performances.

Dr Aiken: There better not be any Man United supporters in South Belfast, Matthew.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): There are several, and some are in this Chamber. I make that point not to be spurious but to give a somewhat spurious example. To be absolutely clear, that has not happened in Scotland. You are arguing against the openness of the Scottish model, but, even in the Scottish model, that kind of scenario, which people sometimes throw up, has not occurred.

Mr Sleator: Correct. Again, I can bring the Committee some other comments or write to it. From memory, that was brought up in the court case. One of the arguments made was that our operating would lead to that, and it has not. From memory, what I found quite funny was that the only Jedi wedding at that point had been carried out in a church, so it was a church service, just with a couple dressed as Jedi. No, I do not think that we will see an issue with that.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): OK. We have two related questions here. The first is about whether there should be more specificity around a belief organisation. That is a legitimate thing, and we really appreciate your evidence. There is clearly broad support to formalise that in primary legislation, but there is a question about whether there needs to be more detail on what "belief group" means. Thank you very much for the very detailed evidence. The second question is about whether that specificity needs to be in the Bill or whether it can be achieved by a regulation. Boyd, you have said, perhaps understandably given this place's record of being inconsistently present, that, if this is passed as introduced and gets Royal Assent, then that happens. We do not have much more deliberation to do, and I am confident that this will get promptly passed on to the statute book. For sake of argument, if the regulations were not introduced until the next mandate and, for whatever reason — sadly, this is not entirely improbable — an Executive could not be formed and the regulations did not get made, we would be in a version of the situation that we had been in before, albeit with a bit more legal cover because a primary law had been passed, but without regulatory cover.

Mr Sleator: You would basically be in the same position as Scotland is, and Scotland is now having to change everything after the fact.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): Part 3 includes clause 12, which is the power to make consequential provision. That is where the regulatory power would come from. Clause 12 (1) says:

It does not say entirely clearly —. That is subject to draft affirmative resolution; subsection (4) makes clear that those regulations have to be passed by the Assembly. We as a Committee will get an answer to the question of whether that would apply in a context where there was no Minister of Finance. That would be a useful piece of information for us to find out.

The Committee Clerk: Chair, with your permission, it might be useful if I interject here. Members will recall that, when the Assembly got up and running again in 2024, the Committee dealt with a number of pieces of secondary legislation. Those were subject to negative resolution, which meant that they came into effect unless they were opposed, so we had a limited amount of time to oppose them. Most were already in effect. The difference with the draft affirmative procedure is that, as you said, Chair, it has to come through the Assembly. That gives the Assembly a much greater level of control, which is seen as an appropriate safeguard, particularly for regulations such as these. However, if it was negative resolution, it is likely that it could continue to operate because, as the Chair indicated, the onus would be on the Department. It is the departmental seal that goes on any secondary legislation. It is one that the Committee will need to give some thought to, members, because that is where the issue probably lies. Chair, I know that the Department has indicated that, with draft affirmative resolution, which the Examiner of Statutory Rules has suggested as the appropriate level of resolution, the Assembly will have the ability to refuse what it is sent. That can be amended and brought back again. That is the beauty of the draft affirmative procedure. However, with negative resolution, it is, "Here it is. It will come into effect whether you are here or not". You can oppose it after the fact, but it becomes more complex to do so. Chair, as you said, this will finish in a couple of weeks, so the Committee can have more of a look at that.

The Chairperson (Mr O'Toole): We have covered a lot of ground. That was really helpful. Thank you, Boyd and Stefanie. We appreciate your time.