Official Report: Tuesday 05 November 2024

Mr Speaker: Before I commence today's business, I advise Members that Colm Gildernew has notified me that he will not speak to the Adjournment topic that he secured on the impact on Fermanagh and South Tyrone of the pausing of the growth deal.

Ms Brownlee: Today marks a year since the passing of David Hilditch MLA. He was a stalwart of the House. He was our colleague, but, most importantly, he was our friend. A year ago, the loss was raw and difficult, but the year since David's passing has given us time to process and understand the gravity of what has been lost. The void left remains huge.

There is not a day that goes by when he is not remembered by us all, each in our own way. He was generous, kind and loyal. He will be remembered fondly for his unwavering commitment to his constituents and for his deep love for Carrickfergus. His quiet strength and presence made a difference to countless lives. David dedicated his life to serving, and I do not say that lightly.

I thank Carrick Rangers Football Club for dedicating Sunday's match to David's memory. Carrick Rangers was his passion and his love. It is a club to which he devoted so much time and energy. As we reflect on his life, we are reminded of the values that he embodied: dedication, compassion and an unshakeable commitment to public service. He was a friend. He was a mentor who quickly became family. He will be remembered by us all.

Some Members: Hear, hear.

Miss McAllister: I mark yesterday's announcement by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) of €13·5 million for the Waterworks and Alexandra Park in my constituency of North Belfast. It is a massive opportunity that is aimed at reimaging communities and bringing them together.

In 2024, there is a park in a constituency in Northern Ireland that has a peace wall running down its middle to divide two communities. The funding, which is earmarked for bringing communities together, represents an opportunity not only to truly transform our shared spaces and reconnect the entirety of our constituency but to tackle division at its core. It is a massive opportunity not just for that particular area but for the entirety of North Belfast.

We can reconnect the city from the Belfast hills right down to the city centre through our green spaces. It is an opportunity for us to work together across the divide and all political parties to bring our communities together and lead from the ground up in order to ensure that we have this integration and reimagining of the North Belfast area and green spaces that are truly transformed.

The project will be led in partnership by Belfast City Council and the Department of Justice. The latter has been working for many years to address the peace wall in Alexandra park. I am excited for the opportunities that this will bring. I am also excited to work alongside communities in my constituency to truly transform our parks, which have been neglected for many years. This particularly welcome announcement will bring positivity and opportunity to North Belfast, which has sought investment for many years and is now getting what it deserves.

Mr O'Toole: I will briefly touch on the subject that much of the world is focused on: the outcome of the US presidential election. In many ways, this segment of our day — Members' Statements — is for people to talk, as Nuala McAllister just did, about important local constituency issues. However, I want to reflect on something that is of global significance. For those of us who think that the US, when led properly and in the right context, can provide positive leadership, the past year or more has been extraordinarily difficult, because we have seen what has amounted to genocide in Gaza. We have seen unconscionable and almost indescribable cruelty and loss of human life. That has happened — it has to be said — with the tacit engagement of a US Administration that have at least attempted, or appear to have attempted at times, to try to restrain that but which has not been successful. That has been very difficult for those of us who believe that the US can play a positive role in the world.

Notwithstanding the judgement that we have had to make about the US's facilitation of what has happened in Gaza, it is important to say that the outcome of today's election is still extraordinarily important. When they operate at their best, any US Administration can play a hugely positive role in the world, including on the island of Ireland. These institutions and our agreement would not exist as they currently exist without a positive, active role by the United States and successive Administrations. We may not have returned last term to do our job had there not been positive, active engagement by the Biden Administration. In acknowledging and lamenting some of what has happened more recently, I also acknowledge the enormously important, positive and transformational role that an active US Administration can play and have played here in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland.

To that end, I want to say what many people think, which is that the outcome of the election matters, because, if we return to a US President who is committed to disengagement from the world, indulges in the worst kind of nativist politics and, frankly does not care what happens beyond the end of his nose, let alone what happens on the island of Ireland or elsewhere, it will be a dark moment for the rest of the world. I acknowledge this moment today and express hope for the world that we have the kind of outcome from the election that will be better than a return to the dark years of the Trump Administration and all that that meant. It would be hugely damaging for the United States and for those of us on this side of the Atlantic and around the world who believe in positive, multilateral engagement as the route to human progress on this planet, whether that is on climate change or conflict resolution.

In the context of a very difficult and awful year, particularly for human beings in Gaza, I want to say that the outcome of the election still matters —

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up.

— and express an intense wish for victory for Kamala Harris.

Mr Speaker: I call Peter Martin. The Member's time is up.

Mr Martin: I will highlight the work of the north Down Royal British Legion (RBL) in organising events across the borough every year to remember the fallen. In particular, I mention Harry Ferran and George Hoy. I also pay tribute to the work of the Groomsport remembrance committee and, in particular, the very faithful and dedicated Alan Hay, who is the power behind the event every year. Alan organises the parade, gets volunteers and liaises with council staff and the RBL to make sure that the event happens.

When you ask soldiers who are entering a conflict situation from which they may not return whether they want recognition, medals or promotion, the answer is the same: all they want, if they fall on the field of battle, is to be remembered. That is what this week is all about: remembering the fallen. It is immortalised in the Kohima epitaph:

I know that, for some in the Chamber, the poppy is a divisive symbol, and, as I look across the Benches this morning, I see that some Members are wearing it and some are not. However, the poppy remembers all those who died to afford us the democracy that we enjoy in the Chamber today. Hundreds of thousands of British soldiers died fighting a dictator 80 years ago. As we stood alone in a Europe that had fallen, we said to Hitler, "Not on our watch".

For me, there is something unique about the poppy. It does not care whether you vote for the Ulster Unionists or the SDLP or about the colour of your skin. It does not recognise where you worship, whether that is in a synagogue or a chapel. It disregards your sexual orientation and ignores the size of your bank account.

Giving poppies to our children in Remembrance Week is a yearly ritual in our house. Given the rough and tumble of the playground, they rarely return with them. I will tell Members how I explained to Zach, our youngest, who was six at the time, what the poppy means. It means that you do not forget soldiers who died for you.

Mr Speaker: The Member's time is up.

Ms Egan: I highlight a report published by NI Water in recent weeks, titled 'Story of Belfast Lough'. The findings make for startling reading, which should be of grave concern to everyone in the House. Those of us who, like me, live near the shores of Belfast lough have noticed with great concern the increase in reports of raw sewage being discharged into the lough. We have watched as the water quality in more local bathing spots has declined, as shown in water quality testing reports.

The 'Story of Belfast Lough' report highlights the fact that there are over 270 storm overflows in the vicinity of the lough, of which over 80% have been assessed as being unsatisfactory and causing pollution. In March this year, NI Water released data on Victoria Road combined sewer overflow, which is one of the sites in my constituency of North Down, predicting that it will overspill 153 times a year, which equates to 70,506 cubic metres of sewage flowing into the Croft burn, across Seapark beach and into Belfast lough. That is only one site in my constituency, however: sewage discharges such as that are replicated across the Belfast lough catchment area. One of the most staggering figures in the report is that sewage spills from NI Water overflows and treatment stations are responsible for over 90% of the bacteria and 50% of the nutrients polluting the lough. That is simply not acceptable from the organisation responsible for ensuring that there is clean water in Northern Ireland.

We know that our entire waste water infrastructure has faced chronic underinvestment for decades, but, just yesterday, the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs stated in the House that he feels that we are on course to see Belfast lough become the next Lough Neagh, with serious and substantial water quality breakdown. That will have serious consequences for our environment and marine life as well as for the recreational activities enjoyed by many on the shores of the lough. My party will not be found wanting when it comes to finding solutions. This week, we published our plan to revitalise our water and waste water infrastructure, titled 'In Deep Water'.

I welcome that the AERA Minister supports working with the Infrastructure Minister to address the crisis in our waste water systems. It is clear that we need to act now. We simply cannot go on as we are in Northern Ireland: on course for another ecological crisis.

Mr Brett: Last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the correct decision to unpause city deals across Northern Ireland. However, what the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not do was unpause the withholding of £2·5 million of funding for my constituency of North Belfast. Six months ago, the Shore Road skills centre was, rightly, awarded £2·5 million by the Treasury. That was £2·5 million to invest in vital community infrastructure, tackle educational underachievement in that working-class community and bring our communities together. The decision to continue the pause, and to write to the project organisers to state that the Government are minded to cancel that funding award, is nothing short of an absolute disgrace.

The people in the community that I represent in lower north Belfast are used to being expected by the Government to settle for second best. They are used to being told to settle for the crumbs from the table, but they made a very clear choice two years ago, when they elected me. They elected me to be a strong and consistent champion for their needs, to end the years of dereliction and underinvestment and to ensure that their proud community gets the investment that it deserves. I make clear to the Chancellor and to the House: as long as I have the privilege to serve in this place, North Belfast will not settle for second best. The campaign to reinstate that funding to ensure that our young people of the Shore Road and surrounding communities get the same opportunities as those who live in any part of our city will continue, in earnest. We will not allow the Government to ignore that community any longer.

Mr McCrossan: Before I refer to a local constituency issue, I put firmly on record my deep appreciation to you, as Speaker of the House, and to colleagues across the Floor, for the support, condolences and wishes that I received on the loss of my mum in recent months. The loss of a mother is deeply personal and absolutely earth-shattering in ways that words cannot express, but I put firmly on record my appreciation to colleagues.

Yesterday, there was a positive announcement, again, for Strabane — we are on a winning streak, locally. Some £16·7 million has been delivered by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) for the Strabane and Lifford Riverine project. That will see PEACE PLUS funding invested in the border area between Strabane and Lifford, which will resolve considerable issues that reflect a very difficult past in that border area. It is a 30-acre project that will deliver a shared parkland facility, a pavilion to facilitate cultural activities, adventure play park areas for young families and a footbridge linking Strabane and Omagh. That is a huge and significant investment. It has had its hurdles and difficulties, but it is hugely welcome.

That announcement complements all the other announcements that Strabane has enjoyed over the past few weeks that, hopefully, will soon bear fruit, such as the public realm scheme that will see £7 million invested in Strabane town centre. Members have heard me bang on continuously about the need for the regeneration of Strabane town centre. That is ahead of us and will happen soon. There is also the £100 million investment by the city deal, which is a significant investment in health, education and recreational services in Strabane town centre and will benefit the community to a significant degree. Furthermore, we cannot forget the most recent announcement on the A5, which will transform the area and save lives. That has been a great relief to the many who have campaigned for a lifetime for an upgrade to the A5.

Those projects are wholly welcome, and they will transform a town that has suffered considerably over many years as a result of a lack of funding and investment. They will benefit all our people and pave a positive path for the young people of the area. I am grateful to Members for listening to me rant on about these important issues, but I am happy, for once, that we are about to see much positive change in the town that I love so well.

Mrs Erskine: I want to give some good news from my constituency. I put on record a massive "congratulations" to Fivemiletown United Football Club, which secured a win at the Irish Football Association Grassroots Football Awards held recently at Belfast City Hall. Fivemiletown United was deservedly crowned amateur club of the year. I am delighted for the club. Also nominated at the awards, in the volunteer of the year category, were Mike Long and Scott Long for their superb social media creations, which highlight the very best of the club.

Fivemiletown Football Club has been going from strength to strength in the mid-Ulster community since 1898. It is not only a facility and club that boosts the health and well-being of people living in the area; the club has created a sense of community and belonging, as attested to by its slogan, "Town, team, together".

Awards like this do not just fall into people's laps. They are a testament to the hard work and dedication of a small group of people. I put on record a massive "well done" to the management, coaches, players and supporters. Special congratulations go to club stalwarts, such as Davy McQuigg and head coach, Chris McDowell. Nobody understands the amount of time and energy that men such as them put into the life of the club, but it does not go unnoticed by me.

The club fights tooth and nail to better itself each season. The club cares about the community that it represents, and I am delighted to see its development. The club received significant Levelling Up funding for its sports ground and facility, and I know that it plans to do much more. Through investment, the club has been able to develop into something bigger and better, which proves the importance of investment in grassroots clubs and sports. I know that the club's development does not end here, and I have no doubt that it will reach its goals and aspirations for the future. From the Assembly Chamber today, a massive "congratulations" goes to Fivemiletown United on receiving this well-deserved accolade.

Mr Gaston: Northern Ireland and its people have a record of innovation that is envied around the world. One innovator stands out above the rest: Harry Ferguson, who was born 140 years ago yesterday. His vision of the modern tractor almost a century ago is now a practical reality that fights hunger and world poverty and has saved countless millions of lives around the world. Today, Harry Ferguson is known as the father of the modern tractor because of his many achievements in the design of the tractor and dedicated implements. Many of those allowed a tractor to be used in tasks that a tractor had never been used in before.

We, in Northern Ireland, have a right to be proud of the seismic legacy left by Harry Ferguson. With that pride comes great responsibility to tell fully his life story of achievements and success. That can only be done in a dedicated museum. Such a museum, as well as looking to the past through static exhibits — including the Ferguson Belfast black prototype tractor — interactive displays, web presentations, databases and simulators, can look to the future as an educational tool and centre of innovation, education, research, design and development. Take, for instance, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Michigan, which was founded over 90 years ago and attracts in excess of 1·7 million visitors each year. Think what visitor numbers like that could do for the economy of Northern Ireland. It is a good fortune on our doorstep that, to date, we have wasted rather than taken advantage of.

Harry Ferguson believed that wealthy industrialists and businessmen such as him should not accept political honours. He even turned down a knighthood twice. However, we can do something that he would have approved of by founding a Harry Ferguson museum of innovation. I am glad that, in a response to a question from me, the Communities Minister has advised that he has asked the Northern Ireland Museums Council to explore the issue. I trust that it will be seriously examined and progressed to showcase the legacy that Harry Ferguson rightly deserves in Northern Ireland.

Mr Robinson: Almost six months ago, I stood in the Chamber to praise the emergency services — in particular, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service — following a huge blaze in Limavady town centre. On the evening of 30 May, the Fire and Rescue Service prevented the inferno at a former nightclub from destroying an entire street and, indeed, taking with it a number of well-established businesses.

When I stood in the Chamber that time, I did not believe that I would be back in the months after, calling on all the relevant agencies and individuals to resolve the eyesore that currently stands at the entry point to Limavady town centre. The large building is a burnt-out shell, and the footway along Catherine Street remains closed to pedestrian access. A number of parking bays remain closed to vehicle use, and the area is littered with debris from that fire. This is at a time when Limavady is gearing up for the festive season and when family-run, indigenous shops need their best trading season ahead of the quieter January period.

Limavady is a unique shopping town, which is free of the identical high street shops that fill almost every major town centre. Limavady has family-run businesses that sell unique gifts and products that you tend not to get anywhere else. In a key corridor into this unique shopping town, however, there now stands what can only be described as an utter eyesore. The public and the business community are appealing, through me, for action to be taken. I stand here today to appeal to all concerned to get around the table and do all in their power to expedite either the demolition of the building or the securing of it in order to allow a tidy-up to commence, and to allow pedestrian flow and vehicle parking on that section of Catherine Street. It is unfair on the business community, which is the lifeblood of Limavady town centre, which employs members of the local population and generates wealth in the town that it serves.

As I said in the Chamber back in May, please come and shop in Limavady and you will not receive a better welcome than in the Roe valley and the home of the 'Londonderry Air'.

Mr Carroll: The horrifying scenes that are coming out of Valencia and the wider region, where people are fleeing for their lives after flash floods have occurred, are a glimpse into our future if Governments do not act to prevent climate change. I want to express my heartfelt sympathy to and solidarity with the families of the, at least, 214 people who have been killed. People should not be killed because of bad weather. It is not solely the weather that has created so many casualties but the Spanish Government's refusal to act quickly or to properly invest in flood prevention and other protective measures. That has effectively ensured that hundreds of people have died when there should not have been a single casualty. The Spanish state has blood on its hands.

There is no doubt that the extreme weather is directly connected to climate change. Warmer air holds more rain and, combined with the higher temperature of the Mediterranean Sea, it has created extreme weather patterns. In particular, we also have to criticise the role of the conservative party in Valencia, whose president abolished Valencia Emergency Unit, which was designed to help prevent and tackle wildfires and floods. I join the calls of many in the region to say, Mazón, dimisión.

Whilst there were warnings about the weather becoming more extreme last week, the Government refused to act. They refused to close schools or to tell people not to go to work, which was, in effect, a death sentence for so many. They said that the economy is not to be touched, and they said that it was business as usual. Really, what we have seen is a combination of neoliberal capitalism and climate denial leading to the deaths of hundreds of people. That is an absolute tragedy, but a preventable one. Whilst billionaires stayed at home, workers had to traverse treacherous weather conditions.

Given the disgraceful role of the state in Spain, I want to pay tribute to and recognise the role of all those volunteers and activists who helped out, who pulled bodies out from under cars and rubble and who have provided safety and refuge. What happened was an absolute tragedy: it was horrific and apocalyptic but, unfortunately, it will become the norm if Governments here do not act swiftly to prevent climate change.

Ms Bunting (The Chairperson of the Committee for Justice): I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Business Committee has agreed that there will be no time limit on the debate.

Ms Bunting: As Chairman of the Justice Committee, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion, and I declare that I have an immediate family member who works in the legal profession.

I emphasise in the strongest possible terms that the Committee did not take its decision to seek an extension of this duration lightly. We are required to take a decision about the time we need to complete scrutiny and report to the House within the period set out in Standing Orders. In this case, the Committee has had to do that against the backdrop of complexity and significant uncertainty.

The date in the motion provides for a longer period than has been normal; we recognise that. Looking at it without the appropriate context, it may appear that the extension is very long. However, it is the product of the particular circumstances of the Bill. The complex nature of the mixed content Bill, the fact that it is proposed that substantive provisions will be added by way of amendment at Consideration Stage and the High Court judgement on the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 were among the matters that the Committee considered when coming to its decision to seek the extension.

So far, the Committee has received briefings from the Assembly's Research and Information Service (RaISe), the Bill Office, the Clerk Assistant with responsibility for the Bill Office, the Assembly's Legal Services and officials from the Department of Justice. Much of what the Committee heard during those briefings informed its view that an extension of this length is necessary. At every stage, we have been advised to take our time and do our best to get it right.

One of the main factors that the Committee considered was the complexity of the Bill. Part 1 is "Biometric Data: Retention etc". As I stated at Second Stage, the Committee is aware of how:

The Committee has also been made aware of a number of databases across the UK that hold biometric data, and the different retention regimes that are in operation, in which the PSNI also participates, were outlined to us:

— insofar as it can be —

I repeat my remarks from the Second Stage debate, because it is important to emphasise just how complex an area it is.

It is not the first time that the Department of Justice has legislated in that area. Section 9 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2013 (CJA) is "Retention of fingerprints, DNA profiles, etc.". As with the current Justice Bill, the intention was to amend the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989. Section 9 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2013 was never commenced. A Department of Justice consultation on proposals to amend the legislation governing the retention of DNA and fingerprints in Northern Ireland, published in July 2020, stated:

The Committee understands why that section was not commenced, but why is that relevant to today's motion? Well, again, as I mentioned at Second Stage, a mere nine days after the introduction of the Justice Bill, the Committee was informed that a need to amend the biometric data part of the Bill had been identified. That information was provided to the Committee in an evidence session with departmental officials. We were told that the need came from the Department's stress testing of the provisions with operational partners when the drafting of the Bill was considered to be complete. During the Second Stage debate, the Minister of Justice clarified that the stress testing was with the PSNI.

We had a situation in which the Department was unable to commence those provisions in 2015 because of an intervention by the then Chief Constable.

We have now been told that more interaction with the PSNI only days after the Bill's introduction has led to the identification of the need for amendments. That demonstrates, as though the provisions themselves were not evidence enough, that this is a highly complex area and one that can change quickly. Indeed, during an evidence session on 26 September 2004, we were told by a departmental official that Part 1 of the Bill is a "complex and technical area". Furthermore, a delegated powers memorandum that the Committee received states that the Bill:

There can be no doubt about the complex nature of the Bill, and, so far, I have referred only to Part 1.

During Question Time on Tuesday 22 October 2024, the Minister of Justice stated:

It is the Committee's contention that the Bill is anything but "narrow in focus".

Part 2 relates to bail for children. The Committee has already been told that there is a need to consider how aspects of Part 2 will be supported by statutory partners, particularly regarding providing appropriate accommodation for children on their being granted bail. That is a key consideration and reflects a wider need for cross-departmental working.

Part 3 relates to the use of live links for police interviews and when people are in police detention. The Committee is aware of how important it is to strike the appropriate balance between the efficient use of resources and the rights of detained persons and the potential need for the new arrangements to be monitored, which may take the form of a review.

Part 4 covers a range of areas, from functions that relate to the police to functions that relate to criminal proceedings, legal aid, criminal records, certificates and court security. Many of the provisions in Part 4 aim to amend other legislation. Again, it is clear, even from an initial reading of the provisions, how complex many of those issues are.

I refer to the various Parts of the Bill to highlight, as I said, how the Bill is not, in our view, narrow in focus. That is before the Minister's planned addition of a large number of substantive provisions by way of amendments at Consideration Stage. I do not want to rehearse the arguments on the appropriateness or otherwise of introducing a Bill when it was known that numerous amendments to add provisions would be tabled at Consideration Stage. It is important to refer to it, however, because it was one of the Committee's considerations when seeking an extension. The Committee is being asked to take a decision on the necessary time for Committee Stage without seeing the text of the proposed new clauses. Accordingly, we have had to take significant precautions in order to address the potential for slippage and for unforeseen issues arising.

Back in March, the Committee was informed that the plan was that four substantive new areas were to be added by way of amendments at Consideration Stage. In addition to provisions on live links, we were told that the proposed amendments would include provisions to repeal vagrancy legislation and provisions to insert the new offences of directing and participating in serious organised crime. Subsequently, the Committee was informed that the plan is now to add six new provisions at Consideration Stage. The additional provisions include amending rehabilitation periods to shorten existing periods and to allow more convictions to be able to become spent. Those are not insignificant provisions.

The Minister and her officials have committed to providing the text of the amendments as soon as possible, for which the Committee is grateful. We will be eager to see them, but, given that the Committee was initially told that four substantive provisions would be added, which was then increased to six, there was some concern that other changes might yet occur. Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, that is in the context of the need for amendments to an existing provision already having been identified.

Indeed, last week, the Committee received the proposed text of some of the amendments, as promised by the Minister and her officials. I should say at this point that, although the text of the proposed amendments has been circulated to Committee members, the Committee has not yet had the chance to consider them formally. What jumped out immediately, however, was that the proposed amendments to Part 1 of the Bill, which covers biometrics, run to eight pages and look to insert a new schedule.

At its meeting on 26 September 2024, the Committee was told by a departmental official:

An initial reading of the proposed amendments suggests that it is more than finessing.

The Committee wants to conduct its scrutiny role to the best of its ability and to be efficient and effective. However, scrutinising a Bill before all the provisions are added is extremely difficult. We need to take focused evidence on the detail of what is being proposed, not an outline. We need to build in additional time for that. During Question Time on Tuesday 22 October, in response to a question about whether the Committee should wait until organisations can see the full content of the Bill before forming opinions on it, the Minister stated:

The Committee's view is that it is essential that it scrutinises the clauses of the Bill as well as the policy intent, and that stakeholders should be afforded the same opportunity. If, for some unforeseen reason, which we know can happen, the legislation were to become the subject of a judicial review, we would not want a lack of proper scrutiny to be a factor in any such situation. A failure to take evidence on the detail of provisions would increase that risk significantly. The need for robust scrutiny of the legislation is a key factor in the Committee's considerations. As one departmental official said when advising the Committee to take the time that it felt that it needed in order to conduct its scrutiny:

The Committee agrees with that sentiment.

That brings me to another important aspect of the Committee's consideration: the High Court judgement regarding the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. Members will be aware of the details of that judgement, so I will not go into specifics now. There are differing views about the judgement, but, regardless, the judgement has been made, and it contains strong criticisms of the Assembly. The Committee would have conducted robust scrutiny in the absence of any such judgement, but it has added emphasis. There is a particular onus on the Committee to conduct focused and effective scrutiny, notably where the Bill engages the European Convention on Human Rights. One aspect of the judgement that I draw to the House's attention is that the court noted that the rationale that was given in evidence for a certain decision about the provisions in question:

We do not want the same to happen this time. Not only must there be an open engagement process to bring such issues to the fore, but we must clearly evidence that we, as a Committee, have taken steps to probe the issues fully. However — again, I do not want to rehearse arguments that have already happened here and elsewhere — it is important to point out that the Committee has been disappointed by the Minister's reluctance to provide it with a Keeling schedule to aid its scrutiny. As I mentioned earlier in a different context, the delegated powers memorandum from the Department stated:

It is still the Committee's belief that a Keeling schedule would be very useful in that context.

Furthermore, the delegated powers memorandum to which I refer should have been with the Committee before Second Stage, which took place on 1 October 2024. At its meeting on 26 September, the Committee was told that the memorandum would be with us within two weeks. However, we received it almost four weeks after that. We are fully aware that things can slip, but that further demonstrates the fundamental need to build flexibility and contingency into our approach to scrutiny.

There has been some commentary here and in the media — indeed, concerns have been raised directly with the Committee — that this proposed extension to the Committee Stage will have an impact on the passage of subsequent Bills that the Minister plans to introduce later in the mandate. I emphasise in the strongest possible terms that that is not the Committee's intention. The Committee recognises the importance of giving legislation priority and of being efficient and effective. We take our responsibility for planning and reviewing our timetabling very seriously. That efficiency must be seen in the context of conducting robust scrutiny for each Bill. The Speaker made remarks in the House yesterday about ensuring effective conditions for scrutiny and has previously spoken about the risk of overloading Committees. The Committee will work hard to progress scrutiny, and we are conscious of those points. We are aware of the Minister's intention to introduce two further Bills, and the Committee will build those into its forward work programme and timetable. The Committee wants to see those Bills progressed. Scrutinising legislation is the Committee's top priority. That will drive our work. We will act responsibly to do the job properly.

One phrase that has been used during the deliberations a number of times is that the requested extension date is "a limit, not a target". I assure the House that, if the Committee can report earlier, it will, but that will depend on a number of factors, including departmental engagement and responsiveness and the Committee properly addressing issues raised during the process.

The Committee has no influence whatever over when Bills are referred to it, and that is how it should be. If the Committee needs to scrutinise more than one Bill at a time, that is what we will do. To be clear, we are not seeking to bottleneck or artificially delay legislation. That is in no one's interest. Rather, we seek to take a responsible approach to scrutiny in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Indeed, the potential need to meet more than once a week as the mandate progresses has already been mentioned during Committee meetings. We want to manage our time effectively.

Although not ideal, it is not unusual for Committees to be in the position of scrutinising more than one Bill concurrently. We are not actively seeking that, but we will devote our time to scrutinising legislation robustly, efficiently and effectively, should such a situation arise. Any future Bills that are referred to the Committee will also be scrutinised thoroughly. Issues such as complexity and the completeness and timeliness of the information provided by the Department will be factors in the time that we require to do so.

At Second Stage, I finished my remarks as Chair of the Committee by expressing the Committee's desire to work collaboratively with the Minister and the Department throughout the passage of the Bill. On behalf of the Committee, I reiterate that desire today. Let us proceed with that shared purpose. Today, I will finish my remarks as Chair by stating that the Committee's only aim throughout the process has been to conduct robust and effective scrutiny. That will continue to be the case. We want to ensure that what is added to the statute book is effective, clear, coherent, fit for purpose and future-proof.

I will now make a number of points in my capacity as the DUP's justice spokesperson. My DUP colleagues on the Committee and I are committed to making the process work and doing the right thing. We take our responsibility seriously. At Second Stage, we were disappointed, as were most Committee members, to be honest, to hear those who are not members of our Committee criticise it for taking its time and suggest that there were politics at play. That is not the case. Thus far, my experience of the Justice Committee has been that it is a committed, engaged Committee, members of which take a genuine and avid interest in justice subject matters and have an eagerness to do our best by the justice family and the citizens who engage with the system. Anyone who has seen the extent to which we all ask questions will bear that out.

There will inevitably come a time when we each take a different political view on an issue. That is natural and to be expected. We are political representatives after all, and that will also play out in the House. Thus far, however, none of that has arisen, and the Committee has been a constructive and collegial place in which to work. By and large, we operate by consensus where we can. While we may come from different perspectives and give our views, it is done respectfully, including when it comes to matters on which we disagree. Nobody is in there with a closed mind, and we recognise that in each other and bounce off each other as we tease out issues. Thus far, we nine have enjoyed a good dynamic and worked together well. I really hope that that continues.

As we deliberated over the length of the extension, I did not seek to steer the discussion or decision and sought to ensure that every view was heard and considered. We deliberated over the options, the pros and cons and the knowns and unknowns, and we took advice. We then reached a decision without having to divide. Some, including me, expressed concern about the time frame, and all of that was debated on a number of occasions over various meetings. Ultimately, however, after considering the provisional schedule for each subject in the Bill and recognising the "limit, not a target" mindset, the Committee came to its decision together.

I fully understand that such a time frame is not necessarily ideal, but nor is it ideal that we must specify a date for the completion of our work when we do not yet know, beyond the policy intent, exactly what it is that we must scrutinise in its entirety.

Some may suggest that elements of these topics seem straightforward on the face of it, but, until we see the actual text and the full extent of the clauses and consider the meat of the issues and what the implications may be, we cannot fully or accurately know, so it is imperative that we build in time in case it is required.

In the course of all this, the Department has given indicative times for various documentation, some of which have been a movable feast. For example, with the delegated powers memorandum, the Department indicated that it needed more time and wanted to get it right. It is likewise for the Committee, and, just as the Department was not curtailed in the work that it had to do, the Committee should not be either.

Given some of the commentary — unfair, in my view — on the proposed extension, the easy option would be to set a much shorter extension time frame that is, potentially, more to the Department's liking. However, what if we reach our deadline and the work has not been completed? We will have nowhere to move, the clock will have run down and the Assembly will have a complex and technical Bill that has not been fully scrutinised and a report that does not fully inform the House from a Committee whose deliberations are incomplete. It would be a colossal dereliction of our responsibilities to set ourselves a date that we could not meet. It is far better to allow ourselves the time that the issues merit and build in flexibility, should it be required. If things work out better and happen faster, that is ideal for all concerned.

With the greatest respect to those outside the Committee — they are certainly entitled to their view — it is not for them to assert what the Committee must or should do and the way we must or should do it when they are not privy to what we have front of us, the extent of that which is still to come or the advice that we have received at every turn. There were lessons from the Committee scrutiny of the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme regulations and the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, and we, as a Committee, are determined to learn them.

We must also remember that the Minister and her Department's officials have been considering some of the policy areas for years. Parts of the Bill are carry-overs from the last mandate, so the Department has institutional knowledge. We must read ourselves into those matters, enquire about the consequences, intended or otherwise, and give due regard to the conventions. Those are not small affairs, and legislation is a serious business. We too are entitled to time to look into those areas.

Some have suggested that the extension will impair the opportunity for further Bills. I reassure those who hold that concern that that is not our intention. I emphasise that at no point have we indicated that we would not scrutinise more than one Bill at a time. Of course, it is not the ideal or preferable way to do it, but that does not mean that we will not do it. It happens regularly towards the end of a mandate, as Members know only too well. If there are Bills in front of us, we will scrutinise them; indeed, we look forward to that.

Even taking into account this time frame, by our provisional scheduling, we still have only around three meetings to cover children and young people, around six for biometrics and four for serious crime. Remember that we will have other Committee work on top of the Bill, like statutory rules (SRs). The complexity of biometrics alone is borne out by the fact that, after stress-testing the Bill with the PSNI, the Department has already had to add 22 amendments and a new schedule.

The DUP has no interest in delay for delay's sake: none. That would be to nobody's benefit. Some may seek to get it done quickly; that is their prerogative. We will seek to get it done right, properly and within an appropriate time frame. The entire Committee is clear, as are we as Democratic Unionist Party members, that we are not in this to needlessly or pointlessly delay. We will put our shoulders to the wheel and do the job that we were elected to do, but we get one go at this. With haste often comes error. It is our responsibility to minimise that, as best we might, in the context of recent judgements and the advice that we have received. That is not to say that things will not go wrong. They may well do, because nothing is perfect, but the Committee and the House should at least be able to stand over our efforts and say that we did the best that we could, took account of the advice that we were given and tried to ensure that we learned from the mistakes of the past.

We are doing our best to be practical and not to over-egg but, rather, to build in what, at this stage, we think, are reasonable timings. That is not easy to do when there is a lot still to come, but we will keep it all under review, be flexible where we can and report early if we may. However, we will not apologise for being responsible and for trying to ensure that we have adequate time. Once the House agrees an extension date, it is set, so we are better to go long than run short, and I trust that Members will see that. We in the DUP support the motion and trust that others will do likewise.

Mr Dickson: In considering the extension, a careful balance needs to be struck between the thorough scrutiny and the timely progress needed for effective legislation, much as was reflected in the Committee Chair's comments. While I recognise the Justice Committee's valid concerns regarding the time required for proper review, we need to remember that the Bill is part — the Chair alluded to this — of a broader strategy to strengthen our justice system within the tight time frame that we have left in the mandate, together with legislation that, the Minister has indicated, she intends to bring forward in the future. That legislation is vital to the House but much more so to the citizens whom it will affect.

The Committee's role is to scrutinise the Bill, and, of course, that is essential. I and the Alliance Party fully support the need for that careful oversight. While the discussion is inevitably around the extension of the Committee Stage to near enough its maximum, I welcome the Chair's comments, which I take at face value, that the Committee will put its efforts into the scrutiny of the Bill and, if we are finished early as a Committee, we will be finished early. I certainly —

Mr Frew: I thank the Member for giving way and for his dialogue and demeanour. He talks about the Committee finishing its work more quickly. Surely the Member knows that that will be completely and utterly dependent on the Minister providing the clauses of the Bill earlier.

Mr Dickson: The Minister has given a strong indication to the Committee and the House that that is exactly what she intends to do. The policy intent of the Bill is clear. We have already got one section of amendments. The Minister will, I am sure, deal with that aspect in her comments, but I have no fear that the Minister and the departmental officials will bring those forward, as has been indicated.

The core of the Bill is clear and focused. The technicalities that have been referred to are at or near completion, allowing us to move forward efficiently without compromising the quality of our review. We are cognisant of the need to follow the requirements of the High Court judgement with regard to the quality of our work, both in how we scrutinise the policy intent of the Bill and in the clause-by-clause requirements placed on us.

Some Committee colleagues have voiced concerns about the breadth of the amendments anticipated at Consideration Stage, but it is worth noting that, while the Bill is wide in scope, many of its provisions are specific and address essential areas such as sentencing and victim protection. The Bill is indeed broad, but it is manageable within the Committee's framework. The Chair has indicated that that is the task of a Committee. That is what we are here for; that is the job that we have been given to do and that we will do.

The proposal for the extension creates the real possibility that, if we were to maximise the time, the Bill could be postponed until 2026. Such a delay would not only hinder justice itself but affect other critical legislation. That has been referred to in the debate already. The Minister has told us that she intends to introduce other legislation. The Chair has made the point that overlapping will be difficult but doable and that it is the Committee's intent to achieve it. Processing this Bill promptly will help to avoid those difficulties. That will require a number of players to come together and genuinely deliver: it will be for the external people who will come to us with their view on the Bill; it will be for the Department to be efficient in the way in which it delivers its responses to all the scrutiny; and it will be for the Committee in the way in which it works.

If that requires the Committee to put in extra time other than Thursday afternoons, that is what the Committee will have to do, if we are to take at face value the Chair's words today.

It is also important to remember that delays may impact on protections intended for victims and vulnerable communities, who look to us for support. With that in mind, I encourage my Committee colleagues to work thoroughly and expeditiously to balance the need for detailed review with the urgency that our justice system requires. I will hold the Chair to the view that she has given today that she intends to ensure that the Committee works effectively and efficiently through this and that, if we can conclude the Committee Stage earlier, that is exactly what we will do. There will be no foot-dragging and no delay. I am heartened by the words that she given to the House today, and I look forward to working with her and others to deliver the Bill.

Overlapping the Bill is, as the Chair referenced, the High Court decision and the focus that it has placed on the scrutiny role not only of Committees but of the House. Therefore, it will be interesting to see the outworking of that, as we are probably the first Committee on which that will have a major effect. I think that is worth pointing that out to other Committees, Ministers and Departments, as it will be interesting to see its effects on them. The Justice Committee has been in the depths of the consideration of that, and, despite my having asked, on a number of occasions, officials and others who have come to the Committee how they perceive the effect of the High Court judgement on the work of the Assembly, I am not sure about it. That has to be taken into account by other Committees as they go forward, but, for today, the focus is on the extension of the Committee Stage of the Bill.

While there may well be arguments for saying that we should or could set a shorter time frame, I am content with the time frame that has been set and with the intent that if we can complete the work more effectively and efficiently sooner, we will do so. I am happy to accept the proposal from the Committee Chair on the time frame for the extension of the Committee Stage of the Bill.

Mrs Long (The Minister of Justice): I want to speak on the motion to extend the Committee Stage of the Justice Bill to 27 March 2026. I fully appreciate how unusual it is for a Minister to speak on what is normally considered a routine motion such as this, but the circumstances are slightly unique for two reasons. First, the length of the extension sought is unprecedented, with the Committee seeking an 18-month period for the Committee Stage of a Bill — a Bill that currently has 30 substantive clauses. Secondly, Executive Office guidance states that, where an extension is contemplated, the Committee Clerk should consult the Department on the implications and the Department should, in turn, take the views of the legislative programme secretariat in TEO in relation to the effect on the legislative programme overall. In this case, that consultation did not happen, and, combined with the length of the extension sought, I think that there are, potentially, some profound implications to the Committee's proposal that I feel that I should share with Members as they go about making their decision.

While the guidance provided by TEO is primarily for Bill teams, it was developed in consultation with the Assembly, is written to follow Standing Orders and promotes, I think, a collaborative and sensible approach of working together. I want to outline some of the concerns that I have, but I also want to acknowledge that, in a meeting that I had yesterday with the Chair and the Deputy Chair, I did receive some reassurance. That has been repeated by the Chair in the Chamber today, and I accept that progress is being made in that regard. Therefore, what I am setting out are the worst-case scenarios because I want Members to be aware of what the consequences of taking the full 18 months could be, although I accept that the Chair seems reasonably determined to ensure that that will not be necessary.

First, I understand that the Committee considers that additional time is needed for effective scrutiny, particularly in light of the Mediahuis judgement. As Members will recall, I raised that in the Chamber and with Executive colleagues at the time due to its potential to impact on any legislation before the House. I believe that it is fundamentally wrong to suggest that one can retrospectively look at Hansard and Committee minutes and judge from that the degree to which Members have scrutinised any provisions. The truth is that there is a lot of discussion and debate. Meetings take place outside the formal sessions and the formal scrutiny. People will discuss it with colleagues and advisers and seek other information. It is wrong to suggest that the amount of time spent equals good scrutiny. One could spend a lot of time talking about an issue that one is entirely satisfied with from the outset. That is not scrutiny and is not efficient. You could equally spend much less time on something and feel that you have properly scrutinised it and are content with the outcome. There is a difficulty in the tracking of the amount of time spent with the quality of the work done. I think that we would all accept that there are serious issues arising from the judgement by making that one of the considerations.

However, even in light of the judgement, an extension of this magnitude is excessive in this case. If granted, it could potentially have a significant impact on the Department's planned legislative programme for the remainder of the mandate, as there will be only one calendar year of Assembly business left from the end of the Committee Stage of this Bill and the end of all Assembly business before the next local elections in May 2027.

I will look first at the impact of the extension on this Bill. Much of the Bill's content has already been widely consulted upon and debated at length via public consultation and a previous Committee. I accept entirely that this is a new Committee that will want to apprise itself of the detail, but it also has to be recognised that these provisions are brought forward, often, in response to High Court judgements, rulings of the courts and considerable policy development that has been taking place over many years. Other provisions have been required in response to court rulings, and, therefore, there is relatively little in the way of genuinely new policy involved. The policy development work of this is well established and has been well scrutinised, and the need for these clauses, therefore, has been well tested.

Furthermore, many of these provisions are long overdue, having been delayed by two suspensions of these institutions and deferred in the previous mandate to narrow the focus of what was to be a mixed-content Bill and ended up being the Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Bill. Further delay in those clauses may leave the Department at ongoing risk of legal challenge and leaves the legislation in this jurisdiction lagging behind the rest of these islands. A number of organisations have already raised their concerns with me around what the extension to the Committee Stage of the Bill might mean for provisions around, for example, child bail and remand.

The Chair, rightly, indicated the complexities of child bail and remand and the interplay between Departments, but those, with respect, are matters of implementation, not matters of legislation. It is already a presumption in common law that there is a presumption of bail for children, and it is already accepted that we should put the current arrangements on a legislative footing. That has been the accepted position of the Committee and the Department for some time. It is also the accepted position of those organisations that work in this area. It does not, crucially, remove the ability where housing or suitable accommodation is not available. It does not remove flexibility or judicial discretion in being able to, for example, remand a child in custody where that is the safest option. Those, with respect, are matters of implementation. The Bill is about the matter of principle that the first option considered by the judiciary should be bail. If we do not put this on a statutory footing, there is no imperative for other Departments to step forward and look at issues around accommodation, safe places for children to go and alternative provision to placing people in custody where that may prove to be unnecessary. For this Bill, we need to scrutinise the legislation, but we do not and should not, at this stage, engage in scrutinising the implementation, because that is a separate matter that will come back to the Committee after the Bill has been passed. The issues around that have already been widely debated.

Members will be concerned, as am I, that a Committee Stage extension will extend further the period during which the use of live links in the justice system is reliant on emergency provisions intended for the coronavirus pandemic. That is something that I want to see brought to an end expeditiously. It is important, in that context, that we can move forward as quickly as possible with this legislation so that those emergency provisions can be set aside.

I will turn now to the wider impacts of granting an extension to the Justice Bill's Committee Stage. It remains my intention to introduce two further pieces of legislation in this mandate: a sentencing Bill and a victims Bill. In simple terms, were there to be a similar extension of Committee Stage for the sentencing Bill — the next Bill in my programme, due for introduction next autumn — which is likely to be more complex in policy terms than the Justice Bill, that Bill would fall before the Committee had completed its scrutiny of it. The consequences for the victims Bill are even more stark.

The sentencing Bill will contain important and much-sought-after provisions, including provisions to encourage the disclosure of the location of victims' remains, to be known as "Charlotte's law"; to increase maximum penalties for offences of causing death by dangerous driving; to create a new offence of assaulting those providing a service to the public or performing a public duty; and to introduce a statutory aggravator model to modernise the law relating to hate crime. There is huge public and political interest, including from Members, in seeing those matters progressed as a matter of urgency.

The victims Bill that I intend to introduce after the sentencing Bill is required in order to place the role of the Commissioner for Victims of Crime on a statutory footing, which I know that a number of Members are particularly keen to see happen so that she can better do the work that she is already fully engaged in of representing victims in the justice system and improving their experience of that system. The Bill is also required in order to deliver additional measures to improve support for victims and witnesses of crime and additional elements of the Gillen and Marrinan reviews.

The loss of either or both of those Bills would have a significant impact not only on the efficiency and effectiveness of the justice system but on the public, which I know that no one in the House wishes to see. It would also have a negative impact on public perceptions of this legislature's ability to deliver on the public's priorities.

I sought in my legislative programme to ensure minimum overlap between Committee Stages of successive Bills, as that has been the preference of Committees to date. With an extension of this duration, however, that would be impossible to achieve without losing both subsequent Bills. I thank the Committee Chair for giving a clear undertaking of the Committee's intention not to stack Bills end to end but rather to allow them to progress in parallel where that is required in order for progress to be made.

Finally, on the proportionality of the proposed extension, I will compare the Bill with previous Department of Justice primary legislative vehicles. I have to say that I found that the previous Committee — I know that there are Members who were members of that Committee — did its work thoroughly and diligently. Any suggestion to the contrary does not reflect the input that the Committee had on the shape or content of Bills. Many of the issues that the previous Committee raised and, indeed, amendments that it tabled at Consideration Stage have proven to be critical to making better provision for victims of, for example, domestic abuse and stalking by ensuring that there is front-line training for various criminal justice organisations.

It is therefore important that we recognise that the previous Committee, despite the narrative that seems to be developing, worked really effectively in its scrutiny role. Its approach was not slapdash. It did not rush the work. Rather, it did the work thoroughly and competently. The fact that things are overturned at judicial review does not always mean that people have not done their job as they ought to have done it.

Although every Bill is different, the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act 2021, which was delivered during the previous mandate, was similar in size to the Justice Bill that is before the Assembly now, and it was considerably more complex. The Committee Stage of that Bill ran from 29 April 2020 until 15 October 2020, which was a period of five and a half months that spanned the summer recess. Even the largest mixed-content Bill that my Department has progressed since the devolution of justice powers in 2010 — it became the Justice Act 2015, and it contained 107 sections and had nine schedules to it — had a Committee Stage that lasted only nine months, including the summer and Christmas recesses. The proposed 18-month Committee Stage is therefore exceptionally long, even by the standards of previous complex legislation that was thoroughly but expeditiously scrutinised. It is important that a balance be struck.

I will talk a little about the amendments, because that has been a theme of the debate. Consideration Stage is the natural point at which a Committee or a Department proposes amendments to a Bill.

That is its purpose, and then there is a Further Consideration Stage at which those amendments can be refined. To be clear, there is nothing unusual about amending a Bill at Consideration Stage; it is, in fact, the Committee's only opportunity to amend the legislation. Therefore, the idea that it is in some way unusual or inappropriate not to have those amendments in hand now is a dangerous precedent to set because it also suggests that, if the Committee proposes amendments later in the process, it is being rushed or ill considered in its approach, and I would disagree strongly with that view.

The amendments in this case are unusual only in the fact that they will all be with the Committee by the end of the calendar year. As my colleague has indicated, the first set of those amendments is already with the Committee. A second set is making its way to the Committee, and the remaining sets will be with them by the end of the calendar year. It is not normal for amendments to be shared that far in advance. They are normally published, in line with the guidance, at Consideration Stage. The Department has gone out of its way to ensure, because we know that the amendments are anticipated and that the Committee would like to scrutinise them, that we will give the extra time and have, therefore, been able to facilitate that. Therefore, far from it being extraordinary that we are amending the Bill, it is extraordinary that we are sharing the amendments so early in the process.

I very much welcome the Committee's commitment to properly scrutinising the Justice Bill. It is not just the statutory function of Committees and the House, but it assists me and my officials. I have no difficulty with an extension being sought to allow sufficient time to complete due diligence, but the extension needs to be proportionate, and, in my view, 18 months is excessive.

On the ability to scrutinise without sight of all the clauses, as I have said on many occasions, the Bill is wide in scope, in that there are many elements to it, but each of those elements is discrete. For example, biometrics does not impact child bail and remand and so on. It is entirely possible, given the content of the Bill, for the Committee to proceed to detailed consideration of the clauses that are already in its gift at this point in time without any knock-on impact on the clauses that we are now sharing with the Committee at an early stage, which it can then scrutinise. The clauses do not impact on each other because of the nature of a mixed content Bill. There is no need for the complete Bill to be there unlike, for example, the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act 2021, where the intimate connections between the parts of the Bill would have made such an approach impossible. This Bill is a different vehicle and method, and, therefore, there is more flexibility for the Committee to look at things ahead of the provision of other clauses.

If people wish to proceed on this basis and the House agrees to an 18-month extension, I will seek firm reassurance from the Committee that it will, nevertheless, proceed expeditiously with scrutiny to avoid the full 18-month extension being required before returning to the House for the remaining stages. My officials remain available to assist the work of the Committee as swiftly as is practical. I would also welcome the assurance that the remainder of the Department's legislative programme will not be placed at risk.

Finally, I will mention the two issues that have been raised again. The first is about Keeling schedules. I have explained that there is no automated ability to produce Keeling schedules. We have taken further views from First Legislative Counsel. They said that, if Keeling schedules were to be required for each Bill, it would be additional work for them that would require additional resources and could not be dealt with. I have exhausted my ability to take the issue forward, but I encourage the Committee Chair and the Committee in general to speak to First Legislative Counsel to understand what is involved in the production of the Keeling schedules and why it is not a matter that my Department would naturally take forward and why, they believe, it is not required.

Mr McNulty: Will the Minister give way?

Mrs Long: I am happy to give way.

Mr McNulty: Minister, I am concerned by some of the language. Your colleague referenced feet-dragging and delay, and you have highlighted the performance of previous Committees. Is it your contention that scrutiny should happen in corridors as opposed to the formal setting of minuted Committees? On the delays to the production of clauses because the Assembly was not sitting, is it your contention that legislation should be shoehorned through to suit your legislative ambitions?

Mrs Long: No and no.

The issue of Keeling schedules should now be pursued through First Legislative Counsel, because using my Department as an intermediary in the argument has been exhausted. There is nothing that I can add on that. It is not for my Department to do.

The other issue is the amendments on biometrics. I understand that they are many pages long, but, despite what has been suggested, they are about providing additional clarity. They are not substantive changes. They were worked through with the PSNI to ensure that clarity and precision were there. It was important that we did that. The Committee will have an opportunity to look at the clauses, which it already has, and at the amendments that have been provided. There is no delay in that regard.

With regard to the Department's delays, there is, undoubtedly, a pressure on the House. When we sit for five out of 10 years, there is a backlog of work that needs to be done. The public would find it odd if, having not been in the Chamber for the two years prior to this, we were not willing to be in the Chamber as often and for as long as is required to clear that backlog. They have expectations of us as their public representatives to put their concerns first.

Many of the issues that I am trying to address have been before the House for a considerable time. Let me give the Member an example that was raised by his colleague: driving under the influence and the cases in which doing so causes death or serious injury. The family of Enda Dolan spoke out earlier this autumn on the 10th anniversary of Enda's death. Having appealed for changes to sentencing laws in this place and been unable to get that done because, for five of those 10 years, there was no Assembly and because, for the last three years when we sat, we had other Bills that had to progress, they have this opportunity to see delivery in the sentencing Bill. They are not minor issues. The issues around placing child bail and remand on a statutory footing date back to pre 2015, when I was not a Member of the House, yet I have read into the issues and the challenges in the time that has been afforded to me.

I do not believe that it should be a case of more haste, less speed, but there is an appropriate level of scrutiny. It is vital that we do not allow perfection to become the enemy of the good. We need to ensure that legislation is properly scrutinised but accept that, even with the lengthiest scrutiny possible, there may be things that need to change, because we live in a world that changes. Things emerge; things evolve. That is not to say that what we have brought to the Committee has not been stress-tested and future-proofed — of course it has — but my officials cannot be held to account, nor can it be suggested that they have in any way been lacking in clarity, given that the legal system itself is an evolving creature and they have to respond to those evolutions. What is true today may not be true in five, six, seven years' time. That is the nature of the work. We need to accept that that is the case.

I want to encourage the Cttee, and I thank the Chair and Deputy Chair for reassuring me that they want to do the work expeditiously. I remain absolutely committed to ensuring that my Department does all in its power to ensure that the commitments that we have made to bereaved families, victims of crime and the wider community are delivered within the mandate. By working with the Committee, we can achieve that on all our parts, but it requires proportionality. I encourage Members to reflect on the consequences of taking such long periods for scrutiny for the progress that we can make in the House and on the impact that that will have on their constituents.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Minister, thank you. I now call the Deputy Chair of the Justice Committee, Deirdre Hargey, to conclude and wind up the debate.

Miss Hargey (The Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Justice): Thanks very much. Thank you to the Minister and the Members who contributed to today's debate. The Committee Chair began the debate by noting the backdrop of uncertainty that we, as a Committee, faced in determining the period that we will need to carefully and effectively scrutinise the Bill. Every piece of legislation that the House passes, even if it is technical in parts, impacts on the lives of people outside the Chamber. It is therefore incumbent on all of us and on the Justice Committee in particular to take the time that we need to thoroughly examine the Bill and to hear from those whom it will affect so that we emerge with the best possible legislation.

As the Minister said, the issues are not minor. We agree, which is why we have decided to take the additional time that, we believe, we need to ensure that there is proper scrutiny. Indeed, as was stated, the Department has had a number of years to work on aspects of the Bill, but, even with that, through the stress-testing that was mentioned, there have been further amendments. That shows the importance of the scrutiny role and of taking the time to scrutinise. It is only through doing so that we will emerge with better legislation at the other end.

The Committee agreed on this approach; it is important to say that. Some members highlighted concerns, but no dissent was expressed at the Committee through a vote against this approach. We have been working well as a Committee. It is no surprise that some members, me included, wanted additional time to look at the Bill on the back of the High Court judgement. Some Members may take a different view of the High Court judgement, but a High Court judge here ruled that parts of legislation that the House had passed were not law. We have to take all of that into account. Of course, we also have to take into account European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings on changing timescales related to the indefinite retention of biometric data, which the Bill proposes. It is for those reasons — to balance rights — that we need to take our time to scrutinise carefully as we move through the Committee process.

Only now do we have the opportunity to get an extension. We do not know how long the process will take, but, at the outset, when the legislation came to us and we started discussing it, we gave a commitment that we would take only the time that was necessary. We can only decide on that time here and now. We do not have a crystal ball to tell us how long it will take or what amendments will be submitted. There is a commitment that we will receive them by the end of this year. I hope that that will be the case, because we will issue a full call for evidence in the new year, but we can judge only on the basis of what we have in the here and now. That is why, as a Committee, we have collectively and unanimously taken the step to make the proposal before us today.

We give a commitment that we will move through the process as quickly as we can. We do not have a crystal ball. We know that there could be two other pieces of legislation, but, at this point, we do not have a guarantee that they will definitely come forward in the times that have been set out. All we can deal with is the legislation that is before us. We give that collective commitment as a Committee. We have had a good working relationship. We may disagree with certain aspects of the Bill, but we can disagree in the spirit of wanting the best legislation at the other end. As I said, we commit to moving at pace. If something needs additional time, we will agree, as a Committee, to afford that. We want the best legislation in order to ensure that it impacts on citizens in the way that we want it to and, importantly, that it holds up as law and makes the changes that, the ECJ and others say, it needs to make.

As we get into the period of intense scrutiny over the next couple of months and into next year, I thank the Committee for its work up to now. Of course, we look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the Minister and her officials.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): Members should take their ease briefly before we move to the next item of business.

Mr Sheehan: I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes to propose and 10 minutes to make a winding-up speech. As an amendment has been selected and is published on the Marshalled List, the Business Committee has agreed that 15 minutes will be added to the total time for the debate.

Please open the debate on the motion.

Mr Sheehan: Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Educationalists, experts and academics agree that poverty is the biggest predictor of educational underachievement. The issue with the RAISE programme is that it does not give poverty and deprivation the weight that they deserve when determining what areas are eligible for funding and/or inclusion. I do not disagree with an area-based or locality-based approach to targeting educational disadvantage; indeed, the 'A Fair Start' report recommended that schools should be incentivised to:

The difficulty now is that less-deprived areas and even some more-affluent areas are due to be included within the programme, while children and young people in many deprived areas in working-class communities are set to be excluded. "Punishing poverty and rewarding wealth", is how one school principal described the situation.

As a party, we welcomed the announcement of £20 million in much-needed funding for our education system from the Shared Island unit, and the Minister deserves credit for identifying and securing new funding opportunities. However, in a system with such limited resources, we should be targeting any additional funding to where it is needed most, and, unfortunately, that simply will not happen under the RAISE programme. Instead of targeting areas of deprivation where we know educational underachievement persists and is most acute, the Education Minister has decided to spread the programme geographically and has used a flawed formula to determine eligibility. Electing to spread the scheme geographically will purposefully redirect much-needed resources away from where they are needed most. If the data is telling us where the need is, that is where the resources and associated interventions should go.

I am also concerned that the apparent over-reliance on GCSE data runs counter to the concept of early intervention. Socio-economic background is a much more comprehensive predictor of educational underachievement in the long term, because it shapes the foundational conditions that influence a student's entire educational journey. The research in this area is crystal clear. It is not geography that is the best indicator of educational outcomes. Neither is it religion. Poverty and deprivation are the primary predictors of educational underachievement, and when we talk about poverty and deprivation in the context of our education system, we measure it by the level of free school meal entitlement (FSME), using free school meal entitlement as a tried, tested and trusted indicator of socio-economic status. While 'A Fair Start' did recommend that the Department should explore the potential of using other indicators, research commissioned by the Department recommended that free school meal entitlement should not be replaced as the primary indicator of socio-economic disadvantage.

The credibility of the RAISE programme and public confidence in the scheme was further eroded when a list of seemingly eligible schools was published on the Department of Education's website. The list has since been removed, but the appearance on that list of a preparatory school that charges £5,000 per year in fees as, seemingly, eligible for inclusion has done nothing at all for the credibility of the programme.

The Minister must go back to the drawing board. We need a plan that will deliver based on objective need. A plan that will direct funding and target support to the children and communities that need it most, and a plan that, ultimately, the public can have confidence in.

Officials appeared recently at the Education Committee and, basically, told us that we did not understand how the RAISE programme is supposed to work. In relation to the list of schools published on the Department's website, which were deemed to have met the eligibility criteria for the RAISE programme, officials said that just being on that list does not mean that a school meets the eligibility criteria. Similarly, we were told that schools that were not on the published list were not necessarily excluded from the programme. Is it any wonder that people are confused about how the programme is supposed to be administered and delivered?

The Minister, I am sure, will also have heard criticisms of the programme from a number of school principals in the media. Those are principals of schools in some of the most deprived areas in the North, whose schools appear to fall outside the Minister's proposed geographical catchment areas. Are they confused also? Do they not understand how the programme is to be rolled out? It is also worth mentioning the fact that the Minister told Mark Carruthers on 'The View' that he clearly did not understand how the RAISE programme is supposed to work. So, there we have it: everyone is confused and wrong, except the Minister.

I have already said that the Minister should go back to the drawing board. There are plenty of examples of good practice in dealing with educational disadvantage. The Engage programme, which helped children who had fallen behind in their learning after COVID, is one good example. That was rolled out on the basis of free school meal entitlement, and it produced positive results. The Minister could also look further afield, to the South, at the delivering equality of opportunity in schools programme, known as DEIS, which aims to reduce educational disadvantage. Under the DEIS programme, schools with the highest number of students at risk of educational disadvantage get extra resources. Perhaps, given the fact that we have the longest tail of educational underachievement on these islands, the Minister might take some learning from the DEIS programme and the system in the South in general.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) comparative study of the education systems, North and South, shows that far fewer young people are leaving school without qualifications in the South than in the North. Significantly more are going on to third-level education in the South than in the North. The ESRI report also flagged the issue of academic selection, which it deemed to be a major factor in educational underachievement here. Of course, no serious educationalist believes that academic selection at the age of 10 or 11 is of any benefit, either to the children or to the system of education that we have here.

Let me conclude with a suggestion for the Minister. When he devises or invents a new scheme and funding model, it is wise to game it out and test-drive it in order to establish whether there are any anomalies or unintended consequences. When that has been done, one question needs to be asked: is this outcome fair? By any metric or yardstick, this scheme that the Minister has come up with is blatantly unfair and is not based on objective need.

Mrs Guy: I beg to move the following amendment:

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): You will have 10 minutes to propose the amendment and five minutes to make a winding-up speech. All other contributors will have five minutes.

Mrs Guy: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is a really challenging motion because it asks us to endorse scrapping a £20 million programme that has the objective of reducing educational disadvantage. That is a massive ask, and it is one that, we feel, goes too far. The purpose of our amendment is to agree with concerns that have been raised about the criteria that have been used but to confine any repurposing to that aspect of the programme only.

We want to start by talking about the positives of the RAISE programme. Its objective, which is to tackle educational disadvantage, is an ambition that, I know, we all share. Every child deserves the opportunity to thrive and fulfil their potential, and education offers a route out of poverty for children in our most disadvantaged areas. Objective need, however, must be the core principle that guides how we target interventions in this space.

I also welcome the investment: £20 million is a substantial and hugely welcome investment from the Shared Island Fund in this vital area, which has been underfunded for too long. Taking a whole-community, place-based approach to this issue is welcome, and we support that. I particularly love the two concepts of community that have been articulated in that approach: the geographic place, but also the different groups and people impacting on a child's life. It is holistic and looks beyond school-based provision to parental support and early intervention initiatives.

The baseline for educational inequalities in Northern Ireland is depressingly low. Evidence indicates that educational inequalities in Northern Ireland are wider than in other parts of the UK and comparable OECD countries. How do we find ourselves debating a motion to scrap a programme that is so badly needed? The answer is simple: the Department produced and published a list of schools that were eligible to benefit from the scheme, and that list excluded schools from some of the most deprived wards in Northern Ireland. For a scheme with a focus on educational underachievement, it is more than reasonable to raise questions and express concerns about how the methodology resulted in that outcome.

The Department has since removed that list, but it was unacceptable that the Minister ever endorsed such a reckless communication. It resulted in schools in my constituency of Lagan Valley — the same constituency as the Minister — being the target of ire and negativity in the media and in public discourse. Those schools were not responsible for their inclusion on the list. They did not receive a penny of funding from the RAISE programme, nor would they necessarily have done so. The Department knows that, because the RAISE programme is not about uplifting school budgets in selected localities; it is expressly about acknowledging that education does not start and end at the school gates. So, publishing a list of schools at all was reckless and misleading, and it called into question the integrity of the whole programme before it had barely started. This is too important an issue to have been so carelessly handled.

Poor communication aside, I am more than happy to highlight the positives and the potential of the RAISE programme, which is a product of the parent, Executive-endorsed 'A Fair Start' report. I believe that the RAISE programme has been faithful to the recommendation to develop a whole-community and place-based focused approach. I have heard first-hand from stakeholders who have participated in initial engagement sessions, and they are excited about the programme's potential to do good. In other aspects, however, the Department appears to have pivoted away from the express rationale of the expert panel.

The expert panel envisaged a reducing educational disadvantage (RED) programme that would:

The criteria that the Department used are complicated, and, although we accept that the nature of educational disadvantage is complicated, we need to feel confident that funding is being directed at the children and young people who are impacted on the most by the effects of socio-economic deprivation and who experience the highest levels of educational underachievement.

In Northern Ireland, free school meal entitlement is often used as an imperfect proxy for a child's socio-economic status or level of deprivation. 'A Fair Start' highlights the limitations of using free school meals as a measure of disadvantage and goes so far as to recommend commissioning research on the issue. The independent review concluded, however, that it would not recommend that the Department replace free school meals as its primary indicator of socio-economic disadvantage. The Department is clearly attempting to be nuanced and to reflect the complexity of educational attainment, but we need to better understand the scrutiny and modelling that the selection criteria have gone through. More fundamentally, we need to understand whether using that indicator strays from the proposal that the programme should be targeted at communities and families in the most disadvantaged areas.

The briefings that the Committee has received to date have left us with more questions than answers. One of the many questions that I still have is why educational attainment plays such a prominent role in the ranking process, especially when the RAISE programme may focus on intervention in early years. For some localities, 'A Fair Start' outlines the need to tell a much broader story of success than that of attainment alone, which has too often been focused on narrow measures such as GCSEs. From looking at equivalent programmes in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, we see that Northern Ireland is an outlier in the targeting methodology adopted by the RAISE programme. Programmes in those other jurisdictions simply used established measures of deprivation to reach the most deprived children. We are not opposed to innovation of approach, but we need to have confidence that alternative approaches are robust and will deliver on objective need. The lack of clarity on the selection criteria extends to how the RAISE programme will be implemented and how success will be measured. For example, we have concerns about the use of GCSE data as the key measure of success in areas where early years programmes have been implemented. The duration of the RAISE programme is just two years right now, but longer-term tracking is needed in order to measure the impact of early years interventions.

The early stages of the programme's development have been weakened by a lack of transparency and scrutiny. If the Minister was confident in the approach that he oversaw, there was an opportunity for him to brief the Education Committee and the Assembly early and bring us along with the Department's thinking. There is still an opportunity for him to do that. If, for example, the Minister can show us that the current selection criteria for the RAISE programme have been co-designed with the 'A Fair Start' report expert panel and are independently verified, we would be happy to accept that, but we are still awaiting clarity. Too often when the Minister has faced legitimate challenges about his decision-making and the Department's performance, his reflex action has not been to give a coherent defence of his decision but to make tenuous political attacks on the questioner. Our education system, with the many challenges that it faces, is too important to be used — abused, rather — as a political sledgehammer wielded against electoral rivals. Our people want more from us. We absolutely have different perspectives on some issues, but tackling educational underachievement is an issue that must unite us.

We want the programme to succeed. We want to see it transform the lives of children and young people. I therefore hope that the motion passes with our amendment having been made. In short, our asks are for an urgent review of the criteria to ensure that the programme is driven by objective need and for the Minister to update the Education Committee and the Assembly on the actions that he is taking to alleviate concerns about the programme. The RAISE programme has had a rocky start, but we now have an opportunity for a reset, not only to rebuild trust in the programme but to reset how we will work together to make it a success.

Mr Martin: I thank the Members opposite for tabling the motion, which allows for debate on this incredibly important issue. Members will know of the passion that I have had for tackling educational underachievement for a number of years. In fact, in 2016, my party was the first of the Executive parties to publish research in that area, with recommendations on how to solve it. At this point, I pay tribute to Dr John Kyle, who also published research when the topic was not being discussed in the House back in 2015.

I agree with the proposer that socio-economic background is an important predictor of educational achievement. However, it is not the only one, and that is a substantial problem with how the motion is worded. I will provide some other simple predictors. For boys, having a male teacher as a positive role model can have a significant impact. Another is the home environment in which a child is brought up and the level of engagement by parents in a child's education. Parental aspirations and attitudes also have massive impacts on a child's development and eventual educational achievement.

We need to look at the actual data in order to understand what is quite a complex issue. The Community Relations Council published some now fairly historical data, which I used when I was writing my report. Its research found that 73·6% of girls from a Chinese background who were on free school meals, on average, achieved five GCSEs, and that boys in Northern Ireland who were not on free school meals, at that point, were achieving 58·6%. That is an interesting message. It simply says that entitlement to free school meals is not the only indicator of educational achievement.

My understanding is that the RAISE —.

Mr Sheehan: I thank the Member for taking an intervention. We did not say that free school meals entitlement was the only indicator: we said that economic and social deprivation is the best indicator of educational outcomes.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Martin: I agree with the Member that it is one of the predictors, but it is not the only one.

RAISE is a place-based programme. As Members have said, it came out of the 'A Fair Start' report, which was an excellent report from the panel chaired by Noel Purdy.

There has already been some chat about the actual criteria that were used. Seven indicators were used for the programme, based on superoutput areas. It is worth reading out the list. They are: free school meals entitlement, which has been referenced; the level of GCSE attainment in schools; pupil absence rates, which are important to educational outcomes; the prevalence of special educational needs; the number of crime and antisocial behaviour incidents in the area; a statistic that measured income deprivation affecting children; and another statistic that measured health deprivation and disability. I challenge the proposers of the motion and the amendment to tell the House which criteria they would leave out if they deemed them to be unworthy of inclusion.

What RAISE is trying to do, and what we have sometimes done in the past, is simply to attach funding to areas where there is high uptake of free school meals or, as the Member has suggested, areas of economic deprivation, and we have not been sophisticated about how we have tried to target that funding. This programme is simply becoming more sophisticated in getting the intervention to the children who actually really need it. For me, that is incredibly important.

The phrase in the motion:

is erroneous. In fact, the opposite is true. I commend the Education Minister for bringing forward the RAISE programme. I am really heartened. I hope that Members agree that anything that tries to address educational underachievement in Northern Ireland should be welcomed. However, the measurement, as the Member referred to, is simply a more sophisticated way of trying to intervene.

Finally, to clear up another misunderstanding, I point out that it is not a schools-based programme; it is a community-informed one. Schools may very well be part of the solution, but not exclusively so. Interventions could include programmes delivered through community groups, churches or youth organisations. I hope and believe that the programme will deliver really positive interventions for our children in Northern Ireland.

Mr Crawford: Education is the most powerful weapon that we have at our disposal. It has the potential to lift individuals out of poverty, to break cycles of disadvantage and to create opportunities that can transform lives. However, too often, many of our children in Northern Ireland are left behind. The reality is that many of our children are not receiving the quality of education that they deserve. They are caught in a system that, despite our best intentions, fails to provide them with the support and resources that they need to thrive.

When we speak of educational underachievement, we are not just addressing numbers or statistics but we are discussing real lives: children filled with potential who are being let down by a system that should empower them. The disparities in achievement among our students reveal the troubling truth that not all our children are offered an equal chance to succeed. Education is the cornerstone of opportunity. It equips our children with the knowledge, skills and resilience to navigate an increasingly complex world. However, we face significant disparities in educational attainment. Too often, those disparities reflect broader social and economic inequalities. In our region, particularly in areas of socio-economic disadvantage, the ambition and potential of young people are stifled by barriers that should not exist in a society that is committed to fairness and progress. It is disheartening that many of our most vulnerable students struggle to achieve basic literacy and numeracy skills, leaving them ill-equipped to seize the opportunities that life offers. We must recognise that underachievement is often a symptom of deeper fundamental issues, about which the Member who spoke previously went into detail.

As Members of the Assembly, it is our duty to confront those challenges with urgency and determination. Members, we must ask ourselves why it is that children in certain areas consistently lag behind their peers. Why do socio-economic factors continue to dictate educational outcomes? Those questions demand answers and, more importantly, action. The Ulster Unionist Party will join others in striving to ensure that all children receive the right support in the right way at the right time, but we also recognise that the Minister and his Department need to review and adapt the provision as dictated by evidence. We ask the Minister and his Department to continually review the programme, to provide details of the defined outcomes and to assure the Assembly that all moneys will be spent well to ensure that the pupils, schools, communities and other organisations that need the support most receive it in a timely manner. As leaders, educators and community members, we bear the responsibility to break down the barriers that hinder our young people's success. We must forge a path forward that prioritises their well-being and future.

Let us remember that every child in Northern Ireland deserves the opportunity to succeed.

Mr Givan (The Minister of Education): I appreciate the Member's giving way. Normally, I respond at the end of a debate, but a lot of points are being raised, and I wanted to pick up on one of them. The Member mentioned social deprivation. He is absolutely right, as was the proposer of the motion and those who seek to amend it, about the importance of social deprivation.

My colleague outlined that it is also an important factor, which is reflected in the criteria. However, it is not, as Mr Sheehan said, the best predictor of educational attainment and underachievement.

In 2022, a study by Dr Erin Early, Professor Miller, Dr Dunne and Elizabeth Nelson Gorman was published, and it is available to Members. Yes, the study substantiated the view that free school meals was an important factor, but it found that parental qualifications, particularly having a mother or father with no qualifications, were a greater predictor of attainment. Free school meals is not the best predictor, and I will elaborate on that in my response. Other factors relate to educational underachievement and to making sure that we get attainment.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member's time is almost up.

Mr Givan: Apologies to the Member.

Mr Crawford: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for his intervention.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Crawford: Together, we can address educational underachievement and build a brighter future for our children. Let us invest in their potential, because, when our children thrive, our communities flourish.

Ms Hunter: For too long, our children from the most deprived economic backgrounds have been failed by our education system. The reality of the divide between grammar schools and secondary schools means that those with the ability to give their children private tuition tend to do so. We already know from research at home and internationally that those at the lowest end of the socio-economic divide begin to lag behind their more affluent peers at an early age and that the gap in attainment only widens as their education progresses.

The RAISE programme proposes an intervention model to help lift those at risk of underachievement, and it is a most welcome scheme. I understand that the expert panel that drafted the proposal did so in good faith and sought to tackle the problem in this jurisdiction. However, serious questions are apparent and have echoed around the Chamber today. How is it that a school that educates overwhelmingly middle-class children from aspirational, well-heeled and high-income homes has been designated for inclusion in the scheme while some of our most struggling and challenged schools have not? It is still unclear how that has happened. It simply does not make sense that a fee-paying prep school that charges £5,000 a year in fees has been included whilst a school in west Belfast where over 70% of the students receive free school meals has not. When researching the matter, I came across information about some schools that have not been included, such as West Winds Primary School in Newtownards, where 71% of pupils receive free school meals, and Holy Cross College in Strabane, an area that I used to represent, where 35·3% receive free school meals.

Universally, as discussed, it is recognised that economic background is the biggest determining factor for educational achievement and career prospects. As legislators, we have a responsibility to ensure that public funds are delivered on the basis of objective need. It cannot be the case, especially in these challenging times when budgets are so tight, that millions are allotted to schools when every normal indicator suggests that they are not in acute need of those funds. We have heard from some school leaders that, as it stands, the RAISE scheme punishes poverty and rewards wealth. There are profound issues about how the money has been allocated. It is of the utmost importance that some kind of reassessment of eligibility is done. The Executive must be seen to take action and lift up those who are objectively most in need first, not those who come from wealthy backgrounds in the North and clearly do not require the intervention that is provided by the programme.

The SDLP supports the motion and the amendment, as we feel that it calls for change, enhanced transparency and collaboration with the Minister at the Education Committee. I am of the firm belief that the Committee is a fantastic tool for scrutinising effectively and learning more from the Minister. I think that we all agree that having the Minister there so that we have the ability to ask questions and seek answers will be beneficial for us all. I hope that we can agree today to remodel the RAISE scheme in such a way that it delivers for our most vulnerable young people. Beyond that, it is crucial that we ensure that the funds that we have are adequately spent on those who are most in need.

Mrs Mason: The decision to pursue a greater geographical spread through the RAISE programme rather than target resources on the basis of objective need is fundamentally flawed. By trying to achieve a greater geographical spread, the Minister is directing much-needed funding away from communities that need it most. I am really not convinced that the design of the programme has been fully thought through. If, as the Department officials suggested, the goal is indeed to increase geographical coverage, a goal that cannot be disagreed with, why have large working-class communities from mid-Ulster, Omagh, Strabane, Armagh city and the entirety of my constituency of South Down all been excluded from the RAISE programme? For instance, there are parts of Downpatrick that rank highly in terms of deprivation. It is an area outside Belfast, yet it does not feature at all. Fantastic schools like St Colmcille's Primary School in Downpatrick have been excluded from the RAISE funding despite being in an area that scores higher on the deprivation index than other areas that are included in the proposals.

If we are serious about tackling educational underachievement, we must accept that poverty is the biggest predictor of educational underachievement. That has not been fully accepted in the design of the programme. There is an over-reliance on GCSE data in determining eligibility. That is deeply problematic and runs counter to the concept of early intervention. Time after time, we hear that early intervention is key. If we are serious about improving the educational outcomes of all children, rather than just using buzzwords, the Department should work to invest in early intervention through early years and primary-level education to give children the very best start in life.

The Minister must go back to the drawing board with this. We need a plan that will deliver the investment on the basis of objective need and target and support the children and communities that need it most in order to promote the very best educational outcomes for all children.

Mr McMurray: I welcome the RAISE programme. Educational underachievement is a serious challenge for Northern Ireland, and it is correct that the Department is taking steps to tackle it. The substantial funding that has been set aside for the programme is appropriate.

The RAISE programme is an important step on the road to raising achievement for all learners in Northern Ireland, and there are many things that are good and excellent about it. First, I am pleased to see that the programme broadly reflects the recommendations made by the expert panel on educational underachievement. Evidence-based interventions are effective interventions. I am always ready to support policies that are based on independent expert advice and high-quality evidence.

Another positive about the RAISE programme is its whole-community and place-based approach and its emphasis on community-based partnerships. The expert panel strongly recommended a place-based approach because it is an effective model that has been applied successfully within and outside Northern Ireland. That is based on two important insights: first, that drivers of underachievement interact in unique ways in different places; and, secondly, that underachievement cannot be tackled successfully without involving the wider community in which it is happening. Place-based, whole-community programmes promise greater cooperation at a local level and create greater collective impact.

I also like the fact that the eligibility criteria for RAISE are based on a multiple deprivation model. The drivers of underachievement in Northern Ireland are incredibly complex. Research has shown that many factors are involved. Gender, free school meal entitlement, religion, special educational needs (SEN) status, school type and area deprivation are all associated with differences in achievement, and different factors can amplify one another. At the same time, it is true that associations with socio-economic status are particularly well supported by evidence. A recent report on child poverty by the NI Audit Office found that, at every stage of education, poorer children experience poorer outcomes. The NI Executive's children and young people strategy states:

The attainment gap between pupils in receipt of free school meals and other children also remains substantial, according to another NI Audit Office report.

In light of that evidence, it is puzzling to see some very deprived areas excluded from the list of RAISE locations. For example, the list of RAISE areas includes not a single area in my constituency of South Down or the neighbouring Strangford constituency. That means that a huge area of south-east Down is getting zero investment under the scheme. Newcastle, Downpatrick, Ardglass, Kilkeel and Warrenpoint are areas in my constituency with high levels of deprivation compared with other areas of NI, yet they are currently excluded from the RAISE programme. Those areas also have high percentages of children in low-income households. As a whole, South Down ranks among the five constituencies with the highest percentage of child poverty in Northern Ireland.

It is fantastic to see such a state-of-the-art programme implemented to benefit our children across Northern Ireland, and scrapping it outright would be an absolute shame and akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Developing a whole new programme would further delay the support that our children in the most deprived areas so urgently need to thrive. I cannot support that. However, it seems to me that the eligibility formula may need some tweaking. In its current form, the resulting allocation does not seem equitable. I therefore call on the Minister to urgently review the criteria for targeting the RAISE programme. Those criteria must ensure that funding is directed to benefiting the children and young people who are most impacted by socio-economic deprivation and who experience the highest level of underachievement. Eligibility must be based on objective need.

Mr Carroll: The Minister has failed to explain his rationale for using new methodologies to define, identify and measure deprivation and educational underachievement. Under the new RAISE indicators, we see grammar and fee-paying schools in the lists of those eligible for funding. It is notable that the indicative list of eligible schools, which included 40 grammar schools and a prep school, as has been said, now appears to be gone from the DE website. To put it mildly, that suggests serious discomfort and a lack of confidence in the methodology used to identify the schools, or, to put it bluntly, the Minister has a bit of egg on his face.

There is no doubt that some pupils in grammar and maybe even in fee-paying schools may experience poverty. Some may even be eligible for free school meals, but, despite what the Minister says, RAISE is not simply about extending funding to more schools and more communities. Fundamentally, it is an initiative to tackle deprivation that sees grammar and fee-paying schools eligible for funding. The scheme includes the third most affluent school in the North, where just 4% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. It also happens to be in the Minister's constituency. At the same time, schools such as Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh, where 60% of pupils are entitled to free school meals are ineligible. Square that circle, please. That seems totally counter-intuitive for a programme that aims to tackle educational underachievement and deprivation.

Free school meals uptake is not a perfect indicator of deprivation, but it has worked well for some time. When it was the primary measure of deprivation, areas with some of the highest levels of poverty and housing need actually received funding. In effect, the Minister has made active, conscious choices to extend funding to wealthier communities and schools at the expense of making schools in deprived areas ineligible for funding. That is totally unacceptable.

The Minister has highlighted the fact that the scheme extends across the North, rather than focusing only on urban areas, but it is still possible to have a programme that benefits working-class communities across the North. The scheme should benefit schools in deprived areas, including West Belfast, Ligoniel, Strabane, Downpatrick, South Down and West Winds Primary School in Newtownards as well, and its failure to do so is an indictment of the Minister's priorities and political decision-making. The Department has said that the fact that a school is not on the list of those eligible for funding does not mean that it cannot be involved in the programme. That is an attempt at damage limitation, to be frank.

It would be helpful if the Minister could explain in what capacity schools in deprived communities might eventually be allowed to avail themselves of a programme to tackle educational underachievement and disadvantage, despite it appearing that they were not allowed to apply in the first place.

The proposer of the motion also raised the issue of academic selection, and again — surprise, surprise — there is no sign from the Minister that he intends to end academic selection. It is worth repeating that academic selection perpetuates division and inequality. It amplifies middle-class advantage and acts as a barrier to a more inclusive education system. In that context and in the absence of plans to scrap academic selection, primary schools and non-selective secondary schools mitigate the worst impacts of our unequal system. When it comes to tackling educational disadvantage, our primary and non-selective secondary schools always do the heavy lifting. A scheme that fails to recognise that basic fact and fails to give those schools the resources that they desperately need is doomed to fail.

The Minister recently gave the go-ahead for capital investment in seven schools out of a list of 28 that were identified in 2022. Again, questions are being asked about the Minister's methodology and how the Department has ranked the schools in need of investment.

The £20 million mentioned about the RAISE programme is obviously funded by the Irish Government through the Irish fund.

If my TD colleagues are returned in the general election in the South, we will be raising this further and criticising the Minister's approach to it.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): We have heard from all Members who are listed to speak, so I call the Minister of Education to respond. Minister, you have up to 15 minutes.

Mr Givan: Thank you. In any other forum at any other time, I would have thought it uncontentious to say that the best way to tackle educational underachievement is to tackle educational underachievement. Not so in this House, it seems. Instead, there is much focus on hyperbole and unfounded assertions. When we have objective educational data, I do not really understand why that is the case. The United States congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan once reflected:

That seems appropriate to the premise of the motion. Prejudice is, of course, a great timesaver. You can form opinions without having to get to the facts. I am happy to debate the constraining opinions, although I find it unproductive to debate facts.

The House must ask itself this: should the RAISE programme simply and exactly replicate the £80 million of annual funding already allocated to tackle social disadvantage in schools through the common funding scheme and other programmes or should it seek to support communities across Northern Ireland, ensuring a regional spread and directly targeting children living in areas where educational outcomes are lowest? The motion suggests that socio-economic background is the biggest predictor of educational underachievement. The evidence across the world, of course, shows a close link between social disadvantage and low educational achievement. That is why significant funding is already targeted by my Department to tackle social disadvantage.

The independent review of education, based on a thorough review of the evidence, was very clear. Large numbers of schools with a high level of disadvantage in Northern Ireland are performing well above expectations in GCSE and A-level outcomes. It concluded:

It is not alone in that conclusion. In a major international study, the programme for international student assessment (PISA) tells a similar story, concluding that the gap in achievement between pupils from the most advantaged backgrounds in Northern Ireland and those from less socio-economic advantaged homes was significantly smaller than the average across OECD countries.

In this context, therefore, is not the best assessment of educational underachievement found by looking at actual evidence of educational underachievement? Ideally, we would look at this across assessment at Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 as well as GCSE. Unfortunately, in recent years, we only have data at GCSE level. Members know the reason why. In recent weeks, I have reminded schools that there is a statutory requirement that they provide such information at Key Stages 1, 2 and 3. To be clear, that is not my requirement but a requirement set out in law, potentially enforceable by the courts. We do have GCSE and A-level results to enable us to analyse educational performance. Should we not use this data to target the areas with the lowest outcomes? Is this not entirely objective and sensible? Higher levels of qualification are strongly associated with better prospects in the labour market and in lifetime earnings. Individuals achieving five or more good GCSEs, including English and maths, as their highest qualification are estimated to have lifetime productivity gains worth around £100,000 on average compared with those of lower or no qualifications. Are interventions not needed to tackle directly poor educational attainment?

I remind the House too that free school meal entitlement is simply a proxy for socio-economic disadvantage, and, like all proxy measures, as every Member who has spoken about free school meals has said, it is not perfect. Socio-economic disadvantage is a complex, multifaceted concept. Free school meal entitlement is tied to only one domain, which is household income. It is based on benefit claims, so children from families that narrowly miss the cut-off point for receiving benefits — the working poor — may experience similar or greater levels of deprivation than some children who are receiving free school meals. In addition, many eligible families do not apply for them and therefore may be missing from the estimates. The RAISE programme is designed to use wide-ranging measures of socio-economic disadvantage to identify eligible areas and then pinpoint investment using educational attainment data.

Returning to RAISE itself, let us focus on the facts, because, after all, facts are far more stubborn than I can be.

Fact one: RAISE is a community-informed education programme, not a school-based programme. It therefore targets areas, not schools. It aims to promote a whole-community approach to education through place-based partnerships. It will fund interventions to improve educational outcomes for children and young people living in areas of disadvantage through joint working across communities, schools, government and the community and voluntary sector. It is not more of the same or simply meant to replicate the £80 million a year directed at schools to tackle socio-economic disadvantage. Rather, the programme was explicitly designed to take a place-based approach to education, the need for which was highlighted by the 'A Fair Start' report panel.

Fact two: the criteria to select the RAISE localities were data-informed, with all areas having to meet a threshold of need, evidenced by factors such as free school meal entitlement, educational outcomes and special educational needs.

Mr Mathison: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Givan: Fact three: no funding has yet been allocated to any school or community partner through RAISE. Any commentary that schools have got funding — I have heard it from some Members in the Chamber today — is wrong. Moreover, any commentary that schools will be receiving funding is completely inaccurate and premature.

Fact four: a period of co-design is under way in advance of any funding decisions. Locality reference groups will be established in each of the RAISE areas. Each group will listen, discuss, reflect and reach consensus on a strategic plan for the area. Ultimately, my Department will fund local plans that identify the need for investment, that develop evidence-based interventions, that design a collaborative approach to delivery and that clearly measure impact.

The Committee Chairman wanted to make an intervention.

Mr Mathison: I thank the Minister for giving way. I welcome the reassurances that it is not a school-based programme, and we received those reassurances from your officials at Committee as well. Does the Minister accept, however, that publishing a list of schools has created confusion and a misunderstanding of how the programme will operate and that the Department now needs to do some work to reset the balance and perhaps improve communications around the programme?

Mr Givan: The Member excluded to mention that some Members used the publication of the list to exploit a particular approach that they take to education. I have heard it today, with a particular focus on grammar schools. Publishing it certainly gave some Members an opportunity to exploit the list to make a particular point. I have addressed the issue of the publication of the list. I have said today that no school has received funding. Not one school has received any funding. Ms Hunter referred to taking money off the poor to give to the wealthy, but that is wrong. Mr Carroll referenced schools that had received funding in my constituency, but that is also wrong. They will not correct the record, I am sure, but facts are not debatable. Members are entitled to their opinion, but the facts speak for themselves.

A Member: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Givan: I may give way when I make some progress.

In the current extremely challenging financial climate, as Mr Sheehan rightly recognised, I am delighted to have secured £20 million of additional investment for communities in Northern Ireland through the Shared Island Fund. Much has been made of the selection methodology for the programme. As I have said, the approach that my Department took was data-led. It is robust and was objectively designed and delivered.

There were three key elements to the methodology. First, the aim is to have a regional programme and therefore invest in communities right across Northern Ireland. It is important that RAISE extend beyond the reach of Belfast and Londonderry in order to ensure that children in rural and coastal areas, who are also facing poverty and educational disadvantage, receive the support that they deserve. Members have highlighted some areas that are not included. I would love to have included every part of Northern Ireland, but £20 million is £20 million, and we therefore have to have criteria and a methodology for the scheme. Due to population size and level of disadvantage, however, I assure Members who represent Belfast and Londonderry that they will remain the most significant beneficiaries of the RAISE programme. Thirty-nine per cent of pupils identified by RAISE come from those two areas, despite their representing only 26% of Northern Ireland's population, yet it is vital that we address the massive challenges faced by some smaller, remoter parts of the country. Persistent patterns of rural underperformance have been overlooked.

Secondly, the programme used a broad range of indicators to identify localities that are experiencing high levels of educational underachievement. Superoutput areas across Northern Ireland were analysed using seven criteria. Free school meals was supplemented by measures of special educational needs, pupil attendance and GCSE achievement, as well as the Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measures of income, health deprivation and crime and antisocial behaviour. Those seven criteria were informed by discussions with a stakeholder reference group that was put in place to support delivery of the 'A Fair Start' actions.

Mr Sheehan: Will the Member give way?

Mr Givan: Whilst free school meals is an important indicator and was included, I make no apology for also wanting to examine indicators of health, crime and economic inactivity. Those are key factors in educational disadvantage.

Thirdly, the programme prioritised investment in the areas with lowest levels of attainment. Using the seven criteria created a shortlist of 256 eligible superoutput areas, with areas that had lower levels of attainment at GCSE then prioritised for investment. As the Minister of Education, I want all children and young people to reach their potential. Ultimately, the success of this programme will be determined by how well it improves educational outcomes, so it is absolutely right that I invest in the areas with the lowest levels of attainment. I therefore absolutely refute the assertion in the motion that the data is not objective. The RAISE programme targets children, not institutions. It directly targets investment at areas where there are too many children who leave after 12 years of schooling without the basic skills that are needed to succeed in life.

In conclusion —

Mr Carroll: Will the Member give way?

Mr Givan: — I emphasise that the RAISE programme is a new approach. It is a programme that goes beyond the school gate. It aims to complement existing interventions and invest in communities that have the highest levels of educational underachievement. It is focused on improving outcomes, directly targeting investment where attainment is lowest. We are not using the single dataset of free school meal entitlement. I ask the House this: do we not need to tackle educational inequality by pooling resources, using evidence-based approaches and testing new ways of unlocking the barriers that hold young people back in the areas where the educational challenges are greatest?

I assure Members that the data behind RAISE is extremely robust, that it is evidence-informed and data-led and that it targets children based on evidence of deprivation and low achievement, because both are essential.

Mr Carroll: Will the Minister give way?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): First, Members, a subtle reminder — it has been pointed out before — that, when a Member or Minister has not given way and is not giving way, there is no need to persist.

The Business Committee has arranged to meet at 1.00 pm. I therefore propose, by leave of the Assembly, to suspend the sitting until 2.00 pm. The debate will continue after Question Time, when the first Member to be called will be Nick Mathison to make a winding-up speech on the amendment.

Dr Archibald (The Minister of Finance): Mr Speaker, with your permission, I will group questions 1 and 15.

As the Member will be aware, I have already established and appointed members to the interim public-sector transformation board. That followed cross-party Executive agreement to my proposal for the transformation programme and the interim board on 9 May. That was necessary in order to deploy the £235 million of ring-fenced funding contained in the Executive’s financial package. The interim public-sector transformation board, chaired by Jayne Brady, the head of the Civil Service, held its first meeting on 21 May and has made significant progress in its work since that time. The interim board is a non-statutory body whose role is to provide recommendations to me as Finance Minister on proposals that it considers to be transformative.

The terms of reference for the interim board are a matter for negotiation with the British Government. Once agreed, the terms of reference will confirm the membership of the board going forward, and I am clear that they must respect devolved decision-making on transformation. There have, unfortunately, been delays in reaching an agreement on the terms of reference, in part because of the change in the British Government. However, my officials have repeatedly pushed to have the issue resolved, and I am pleased to report that I have now considered draft terms of reference provided by my officials, following engagement with their NIO counterparts. I have shared the draft terms of reference with my Executive colleagues for their consideration, before I engage with the British Secretary of State to agree the details, after which, of course, I will update the Finance Committee and the Assembly.

Mr Brett: Thank you, Minister, for the update. I agree that the role of the board is to advise, but does the Minister have concerns about the decision by the public-sector transformation board to streamline the 47 bids that were received down to the 29 that reached your desk, meaning that 18 projects were not taken forward to the next stage? Does the Minister share my concern that the board's decisions are made by people who are not accountable to the House? Should those decisions be taken by you, Minister, not by unelected civil servants?

Dr Archibald: The Executive will decide which proposals are to be funded on the basis of my recommendations. The role of the board is to provide advice to inform those decisions, not to take the decisions. The board is working under a clear direction and criteria set and agreed by the Executive to assess and determine what proposals are, in fact, transformational. It will then, of course, be for the Executive to decide which of those go forward for funding.
The head of the Civil Service, in her role as chair of the interim board, has kept me updated, and I have met her on a number of occasions. She advised me of the approach to proposals that were being taken forward, and, as the Member said, 29 of the 47 proposals were considered to be transformational and were moved forward to the next stage. Eleven of those have moved to a stage 2 assessment, and 18 are in a digital landscape review. At this point, a number of proposals are no longer moving forward. The board's role, clearly, is to assess whether the proposals are transformative and provide advice to me on that basis, and that is in keeping with the approach that was agreed by the Executive.

Mr Speaker: Peter Martin.

Mr Martin: Question 2. No; question 15. Apologies, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker: No. Ask a supplementary, please.

Mr Martin: At this point, I do not have a supplementary.

Mr Speaker: OK.

Mr O'Toole: Minister, your answer to Mr Brett threw up more questions. You said that the decisions have not been taken, but, if projects and bids are being taken off the table by the board — by the way, the board includes the permanent secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, which is pretty dubious when it comes to devolution — that is, by definition, making a decision. Can you be clear on when the proposals will be brought to the Executive? When will we have a final indication of what will be funded by the transformation fund? We are hearing lots of contradictory things.

Dr Archibald: The role of the interim board, as agreed by the Executive, is to filter proposals that have been put forward by Departments. It moves forward those that it considers transformative and removes those that are not.
That is the basis on which officials provide advice to Ministers on a range of issues. The final decision on which projects will be selected will be made by the Executive following a recommendation from me, as Finance Minister. The Executive will make their final decision on the basis of the shortlist of transformative proposals that is put forward.

I know that officials updated the Committee recently on the transformation board and indicated that a stage 2 process had been conducted. I understand that the transformation board will meet later this week. I will then receive advice on how the bids have progressed and take proposals to the Executive.

Miss Brogan: Will the Minister outline how confident she is that the new approach to funding will be successful, le do thoil?

Dr Archibald: It is my ambition that this approach to transformation will help to drive innovative thinking in Departments to help our services become more sustainable and efficient. That is why the public-sector transformation board encouraged Departments to bring forward more novel proposals and outlined in its initial call that the risk of failure should not become a blocker to creative and innovative thinking.

I want to maximise the opportunities for the funding. I meet and correspond regularly with the chair of the interim board, Jayne Brady, on the progress of the programme. I encouraged the interim board to be flexible in its approach and to reflect back to ensure that the transformation programme can adapt for future rounds of transformation funding. I have raised directly with the chair the fact that I would like further consideration of how the programme can be widened. The interim board has adapted its methods during the process. For example, it has placed importance on the qualitative assessment of proposals. It is undertaking a landscape review for digital proposals and is bringing in additional expertise. It has engaged directly and in person with Departments to test, probe and help strengthen proposals to ensure that the strongest possible proposals come back for consideration.

I understand that feedback from Departments has been positive and that they have enjoyed the challenge of pitching for funding in that way, with a view to getting access to much-needed additional funding to help deliver public services. While we all know that the £235 million of funding that we have over five years for transformation will in no way tackle the magnitude of the issues at hand, it can be significant in helping to develop and implement a model of delivery that will also help to stimulate wider transformation of public services.

Mr Mathison: If and when the public-sector transformation board is made permanent, will Departments have a further opportunity to submit new bids, given that the initial window of time was very short?

Dr Archibald: The board was set up on an interim basis while we considered interim terms of reference. That work is ongoing, and I hope to see progress on it shortly. The transformation funding is structured on the basis of £47 million each year over five years. There will be further opportunities for Departments to bid for that. I would like it to be an iterative process so that, after bids have been developed, people can get feedback and develop them further. That is the approach that I have encouraged the transformation board to take so that there is collaboration and cooperation with Departments to inform the best possible bids.

Dr Archibald: My officials are conducting the recruitment exercise on behalf of the Executive Office. My departmental HR officials worked with officials from the Executive Office on the design of a competition for the post of head of regulatory divergence co-ordination at grade 7 level. Details of the role are set out in the candidate information booklet, and the post was advertised on Monday 7 October on the NICS recruitment website.

Mr Gaston: Providing £59,000 a year to fund a post that deals with divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland makes a mockery of the claims that the Irish Sea border has gone. Does the remit of the employee include monitoring the cost to businesses of severing our links with the rest of the United Kingdom?

Dr Archibald: The Executive Office submitted the vacancy to NICS HR. It will have included the role and responsibilities of the post in the funding and headcount form that it is required to complete. Further discussions then took place between HR and the Executive Office to finalise and agree the post, including its roles and responsibilities, prior to the competition being advertised, and trade unions were consulted on it. Full details of the post's responsibilities and roles will be included in the HR candidate booklet.

Miss Hargey: Will the Minister expand on how the post's roles and responsibilities were determined?

Dr Archibald: As I outlined in response to Mr Gaston, a process took place between the Executive Office and NICS HR in my Department to understand the role that the individual would be required to undertake and the responsibility of the post. As part of the process, engagement was had with trade union side on the role, prior to the competition being launched.

Mr Crawford: Minister, what will be the relationship between the post and the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee?

Dr Archibald: The responsibilities of the post include coordinating the NICS management of potential or material regulatory divergence stemming from compliance with the Windsor framework; leading on the administration and maintenance of the Executive Office's EU law information tracking system; coordinating NICS engagement with the British Government's post-EU exit common frameworks programme; coordinating engagement with the British Government on retained EU law and their implementing legislation programme; representing NICS on those issues with British Government, Scottish Government and Welsh Government colleagues; providing high-quality and timely briefing to Ministers and officials; and leading a small team operating in a fast-paced, high-profile policy portfolio. I imagine that it will be for the Executive Office to determine the engagement with the relevant Committees.

Ms McLaughlin: Minister, have you done any proactive work to ensure that Invest NI, InterTradeIreland and other relevant bodies have the funding that they need to promote and maximise dual market access?

Dr Archibald: The Economy Minister leads on engaging with those organisations on their budgetary requirements. That will inform the bids that he makes in relation to the Budget and any monitoring rounds that are undertaken. The decisions that he makes on how funding flows from his Department will be a matter for him.

Dr Archibald: My Department is assessing its entire accommodation requirements as part of the NICS estate strategy, which includes its plans up to 2035.The implementation of the hybrid working policy in 2021 has significantly changed how the Civil Service uses its estate and has provided opportunities to progress a leaner, greener and more modern estate suited to the needs of the Civil Service in delivering today’s public services.

It is important that we have a modern, fit-for-purpose and right-sized office estate that is a welcoming environment for people to work in collaboratively. County Hall, Coleraine is currently underoccupied. A review of accommodation needs in that area will therefore be undertaken over the next 24 months. That will be carried out in consultation with the Departments that occupy the building.

Mr Bradley: I thank the Minister for her answer. Minister, the Minister for Communities recently made a welcome announcement of 1,000 new jobs across Northern Ireland. What discussions have taken place between your Department and the Department for Communities on job creation in Coleraine in the light of the Coleraine site having missed out on the recent DWP opportunities?

Dr Archibald: I have not had any direct correspondence on that issue from the Minister for Communities. Obviously, we are committed to ensuring regional balance in our office estate. I am happy to engage with the Minister or anyone else on that basis.

Ms Ferguson: What steps has the Department taken to achieve a regional balance when placing Civil Service jobs and posts?

Dr Archibald: Civil Service staff are posted in accommodation across the North in the Department of Finance's office estate and in buildings owned or leased by other Departments.

Six Connect2 hubs were opened in August 2022, allowing staff to work remotely at six regional locations — Ballykelly, Ballymena, Bangor, Craigavon, Downpatrick and Omagh — as an occasional alternative to working from home or in their designated workplace. The Civil Service has also implemented a hybrid working policy, which helps to support regional balance by affording its workforce more choice around its working location, allowing a mix of workplace, home and remote working.

As a major employer, the Civil Service recognises the potential benefits of hybrid working in contributing to regional balance. Therefore, hybrid working is available, where possible, for all employment opportunities offered by the Civil Service. Decisions about where Civil Service staff need to be located to perform their work duties are for Departments to consider. Individual Departments determine the number, type and grade of posts at each location.

Ms K Armstrong: The Minister talked about the review of accommodation requirements that is under way. That may well lead to a rationalisation of the estate. Is there an option or policy on change of use that could be brought forward to allow the Minister for Communities first refusal for housing options, given that we are in a housing crisis?

Dr Archibald: A disposal process is undertaken in relation to any surplus buildings. That is something that I am keen to look at, review and make sure is fit for purpose, including in relation to community asset transfer. Therefore, I will be open to any conversations about how we can best utilise the buildings that we have, pass them on and ensure that we get value for money for them and that they are used for the purposes that are most needed in our communities.

Dr Archibald: Mr Speaker, with your permission, I will answer questions 4 and 5 together.

In the autumn Budget announced on 30 October, the British Chancellor set out the Executive's final funding envelope for 2024-25 and the funding envelope for the first phase of the spending review for 2025-26. For 2024-25, the Executive will receive Barnett consequentials of £609·3 million resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL) and £30·4 million capital DEL, which is above the Westminster Main Estimates position. When added to the £308·9 million of additional Barnett consequential received from the spring Budget and Westminster Main Estimates, which was allocated in June monitoring, that makes a total of £918·2 million additional resource DEL funding in 2024-25. That level of in-year funding is unprecedented, outside of COVID, and reflects the extent of the impact on public services of 14 years of Tory austerity. While that funding is welcome and will go some way towards meeting current in-year pressures, significant challenges remain for the Executive. I will bring forward proposals on the allocation of the available resource and capital DEL for 2024-25 as part of the October monitoring round.

For 2025-26, the Treasury has confirmed £609·3 million of resource DEL Barnett consequentials allocated in the autumn Budget for 2024-25, which will be baselined in 2025-26, but that approach has not been taken for the autumn Budget capital DEL consequentials. In addition, the Executive will receive Barnett consequentials for 2025-26 of £600·9 million resource DEL and £270·8 million capital DEL, with a reduction of £4·6 million in financial transactions capital. Including the restoration package, the Executive will receive a further £668·7 million resource DEL and £91·6 million capital DEL of non-Barnett funding.

I intend to bring proposals for a draft Budget to the Executive in the near future. Unfortunately, as the Chancellor’s announcement covered only 2025-26 —

Mr Speaker: Minister.

Dr Archibald: — this draft Budget will be for one year only. Going forward, I intend to move to multi-year Budgets where multi-year spending review settlements allow.

Mr Speaker: Thank you. You should have asked beforehand if you wanted to run over.

Ms Flynn: When can we expect to see a draft Budget for 2025-26?

Dr Archibald: With the funding envelope for 2025-26 announced, it is my intention, subject to agreement, to publish a draft Budget by early December to allow for the full 12-week consultation before a final Budget is agreed by the Executive prior to the start of the new financial year.

Mr McGrath: The Chancellor announced an increase in employers' contributions to National Insurance, and businesses in Northern Ireland will have to pay that. The Chancellor also announced a reduction of 40% in business rates for retail and hospitality to help them offset that impact. Whether Northern Ireland businesses get that or not is down to you, Minister. Will you include a comparable rate relief for retail and hospitality in Northern Ireland in your upcoming reforms of the rates system?

Dr Archibald: As I indicated yesterday, the changes to rate relief in England for retail, hospitality and leisure have led to a reduction in our Barnett consequential for this year, along with some other rate reliefs of about £80 million that were removed or changed. As the Member is aware, we still face significant issues in relation to our own Budgets, including that for this financial year and into next year.

I have recognised and do recognise the many challenges facing businesses. I recognise that the increases in National Insurance, the real living wage and national minimum wage will put additional challenges on our businesses, so I am keen to work with businesses, and I will be looking at how we can work together to address some of those challenges.

Mr Carroll: Minister, do you have any indication that there will be money to mitigate or reinstate the winter fuel payment or to mitigate or abolish the two-child tax limit?

Dr Archibald: No. As I said yesterday, when I made my statement on the Budget, I was disappointed that neither of those things was addressed in the British Chancellor's Budget, last Wednesday. That indicates the impact of bad decisions that are taken in Westminster on people here. Obviously, with the continuing challenges to the Executive's Budget, it is not possible for the Executive to mitigate every such bad decision. I would implore the Chancellor to look again at some of those issues, and, hopefully, we will see some additional work, particularly in relation to the two-child cap.

Mr Donnelly: Many organisations across Northern Ireland, including in my constituency of East Antrim, rely on the Shared Prosperity Fund to deliver important services that affect all our communities. What is the Minister's assessment of the announcement of £900 million of transitional funding for the Shared Prosperity Fund, and what impact will that have in Northern Ireland?

Dr Archibald: The allocation to the Executive for next year in relation to the Shared Prosperity Fund is, as yet, unknown, but the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government advises that it will provide that information soon to give certainty to groups and projects that may be facing funding cliff edges at the end of 2024-25. Of course, we had continually made the case that we needed to have that certainty for those groups as soon as possible.

I understand that this a discrete pot of funding for the 2025-26 year, and a revised Shared Prosperity Fund perspective is being developed beyond that. I recognise that the £900 million represents a 40% reduction in the Shared Prosperity Fund from 2024-25, and that is, obviously, not what the groups out there or I want to hear.

I can say that this is a transition year, and for that post-2026 funding, I would fully expect a co-designed programme, focusing on our priorities and delivered through the Executive, to achieve positive outcomes for our citizens. No less than co-design is acceptable in relation to that, and I will continue to impress that upon British Ministers.

Dr Archibald: To encourage young people to join the Civil Service, a range of measures has been introduced, including the increased use of external recruitment and expansion of entry routes into the Civil Service: for example, developing new apprenticeships schemes; launching a new Civil Service skills academy and graduate management programme; increasing the number of annual, 51-week student placements on offer; and facilitating JobStart work experience opportunities for unemployed young people.

It also includes the removal of qualifications from eligibility criteria to enable those who are not academically qualified to apply for Civil Service jobs; the use of social media and digital recruitment advertising channels that are typically accessed by young people; participation in events to promote the Civil Service as an inclusive employer, such as Belfast Mela, Pride and National Inclusion Week; increased engagement with the education sector through university recruitment fairs and careers webinars to promote the range of careers available; and facilitating work placements through the Civil Service work experience scheme.

Mr Baker: I thank the Minister for her answer. What outreach work has taken place that is aimed at encouraging young people to join the Civil Service and at demonstrating the opportunities that are available?

Dr Archibald: The Civil Service undertakes a programme of outreach with the education sector to promote the careers opportunities that are available. Over the past 12 months, the Civil Service has participated in careers fairs and events with schools and has regularly engaged with local universities, including participating in careers fairs, career exploration days and networking. As an employer, the Civil Service has also been represented at autumn careers fairs for accountancy, engineering, science, tech and ICT, law and economics and has participated in careers fairs that are targeted at the wider job-seeking market, including those under the age of 35. The Civil Service has started to develop an A to Z video series of Civil Service careers, which will be used to promote the variety of jobs and roles that are available and to better explain the types of jobs that civil servants do.

Ms Hunter: Through the SDLP's Make Change programme, we want to see a Civil Service that employs young people and people from diverse backgrounds. I am mindful that, in years to come, 70% of grade 5s in the Civil Service are due to retire. What more can we do to upskill young people in the Civil Service and retain them? What more can we do to upgrade them each and every year through personal development?

Dr Archibald: I agree with the Member. It is important not only to attract and recruit more young people into the Civil Service but to support them through continuing professional development (CPD). There is a significant programme in place throughout the Civil Service. If the Member would like to write to me, I can provide her with additional information on it.

Dr Archibald: Following my invitation, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority will be travelling to Belfast to meet me and to attend the banking round table that I will host later this month. I will use that meeting to call on the chief executive to use all the powers at his disposal to ensure proper access to cash and banking services for citizens right across the North. The round table will therefore provide a valuable platform for a range of key stakeholders to put their concerns about access to cash directly to the Financial Conduct Authority and to discuss how the new rules can help our communities.

Mrs Erskine: I thank the Minister for her answer and welcome the fact that the round table will be happening. The Minister will know that I have asked about the issue before, because banking facilities are vital in rural areas. I note that, since the rules were confirmed in July, LINK, which manages the UK's cash access and ATM network, reassessed the needs of areas where banking facilities have changed. Fifteen communities that previously were not able to have a banking hub will now get one, but none of those is in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister make the case for banking hubs to the FCA when it attends the round table? Lisnaskea, in my area, is a prime example of somewhere that needs to be reassessed.

Dr Archibald: The issues of how need is assessed and the criteria that are used were raised at my previous round table, which included representatives from LINK and Cash Access UK, as well as other senior representatives of high street banks and building societies. I tested with the industry whether the assessment process to qualify for a banking hub is suitable. That is therefore something that I am happy to take up again with the Financial Conduct Authority. We will have to see how the new rules that it has announced bed in, but we are already getting feedback that they did not change the assessment outcomes, so that is something that we need to explore further.

Mr Gildernew: Given the high cost of insurance in the North, will the opportunity be taken at the round table to discuss what steps can be taken to address the issue?

Dr Archibald: As I mentioned, I met industry bodies recently to express my concerns about the increases in insurance costs, which are adding further financial pressures to households, businesses and communities here, and to challenge them on what the sector is doing to contain costs. Industry bodies argue that the increases are being driven by a number of factors, some of which are being experienced globally owing to inflationary pressures in the industry, while others appear to be more specific to the market here.

My officials continue to engage with the FCA and the Treasury on the local factors that affect insurance prices in the North in order to see what action they can take to help consumers. I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, wrote to invite me to attend a cross-party and cross-government meeting of the task force on the cost of motor insurance. I have agreed to attend that meeting and intend to ensure that local issues in the North are not overlooked. I expect the main focus of discussion at the banking round table to be on the key issues and developments around access to cash and banking services that have an impact here, but the impact that rising insurance premiums have on citizens and businesses here will form part of my separate discussions with the FCA chief executive on that day, given the FCA's responsibilities as the regulator for the insurance sector.

Mr Speaker: We will now move to topical questions.

Dr Archibald: Since my statement to the Assembly yesterday, my officials have carried out further engagement with Treasury. They checked the figures for business rates, and, unfortunately, £80 million has been taken out of our funding for business rates next year. That means that, if there were a move to provide more support, that support would have to come from the Executive's existing resources, and the challenges in relation to that have been well documented.

As I said to your colleague, I remain hugely sympathetic to businesses as they face so many pressures. Through my engagements with businesses since taking up post, they have made it clear that there have been many challenges since the pandemic, including rising energy prices and inflationary pressures across a range of goods and services. As I mentioned, other changes announced by the Chancellor will have an impact, including increased National Insurance, the national living wage and the national minimum wage. As I mentioned to Mr Carroll, that example serves to highlight the fact that, when bad decisions are made at Westminster, they have an impact here. The Executive are not in a position to continue to mitigate every single bad decision.

It is important to emphasise the fact that the Executive already provide £275 million in rate reliefs to support businesses, but every pound that we spend on rate reliefs means either reduced revenue for public services — as you mentioned, it is our only tool for raising revenue — or higher rates bills for other homes and businesses. I have put proposals for our rating system forward for the Executive's agreement.

Mr O'Toole: I acknowledge that bad decisions are made in London — it is important that I say that — but that cannot be all that we talk about in the Chamber. We have to talk about the power that you have to improve the lives of workers, families and businesses in the North. Let us be clear that you have the power to review the rating system. Last week, the Treasury announced that it will review how business rates work in England in order to put more tax on big warehouse businesses such as Amazon and to lower business rates on small retail and hospitality businesses in the high street.

Mr Speaker: We get the drift, Mr O'Toole.

Mr O'Toole: for months on end. Are you going to do likewise in Northern Ireland?

Dr Archibald: That is not the only thing that I talk about in the Chamber; I talk about quite a lot of things other than bad decisions made at Westminster, including how I negotiated an interim fiscal framework that has provided hundreds of millions of pounds, additional, for the Executive and Assembly to spend.

I have recognised the challenges that face businesses. As I have said on a number of occasions, I have brought short-, medium- and long-term proposals for our rating system to the Executive. It is important that our rating system is as fair, progressive and equitable as possible, that we have a system that aligns with what we are trying to achieve, economically and socially and that we create an environment that supports businesses to start up, thrive and create jobs. I am committed to working across the Executive and with business organisations and others across society to ensure that we have the best possible system and that any rate reliefs that are in place continue to meet the policy objective that they were put in place to meet.

Dr Archibald: Obviously, it was good that the Executive were able to agree that £25 million to support the childcare sector. A number of measures underneath that, as you mentioned, were supported by that funding. I would be happy to engage with the Member and other Ministers to ensure that that funding is utilised. Perhaps, if you want to write to me on that specific issue, we can pick it up from there.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Minister for her response. The increase to the minimum wage will have a significant impact on workers in the childcare sector who are on lower pay. A huge concern that is coming from the sector is that the increase will have to be passed on to parents, so it would be great to see some sort of relief and an assurance that that £2 million will meet demands.

Dr Archibald: The Member and I have discussed rate relief for the childcare sector on a number of occasions. I am open to considering that if the Education Minister wants to bring forward proposals on that as part of the childcare strategy. That remains my position.

Dr Archibald: I do not want to get into all the specific measures, but no decisions have been made on removing any particular rate relief. I want to ensure that the rate relief measures that we have in place continue to meet the policy objectives for which they were put in place. Obviously, there are proposals with the Executive, and I hope that I will get support from my Executive colleagues to take those forward.

Mr Martin: I thank the Minister for her answer. Is she cognisant that, if that rate relief is removed, those institutions may be forced to pass on the cost directly to students?

Dr Archibald: As I said in my previous answer, no decisions have been taken on specific measures. It would be for the Executive to take those decisions because something like that particular rate relief measure would be considered cross-cutting. Obviously, every single rate relief measure will have an impact on the organisations, businesses or individuals receiving it. That is why it is important to review each of them.

Dr Archibald: I do not agree with the Member's assessment that it is nonsensical. The Civil Service is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace that reflects the society that we serve. I can confirm that there was no cost involved in developing the guide, which was developed by staff in-house in consultation with external stakeholders.

Mr Clarke: I take it that the Minister supports that guide and has not taken any cognisance of others who may be offended by some of the new terminology. I am sure that colleagues to my left and right would much prefer to be addressed by their proper titles, as opposed to being addressed by some manufactured title that has been created by the Civil Service. Minister, do you support that document and its outworkings in the Civil Service?

Dr Archibald: The development and publication of the inclusive language guide was a commitment in the 2024-25 Civil Service diversity action plan. It is part of our wide-ranging work on equality, diversity and inclusion. It was developed to promote understanding of the important role that language plays in creating an inclusive workplace. It aims to empower civil servants to consider how the language that they use can impact on others and the potential that it has to make somebody feel uncomfortable, isolated, unwelcome or excluded.

I take issue with the Member's comments on titles. Some women do not like to be defined by their marital status. That is just a matter of fact.

Dr Archibald: We have in place robust billing, collection and recovery processes to maximise rate collection and reduce rating debt. Those include issuing annual bills; issuing final demands for payments; recovery procedures, including formal written correspondence, emails and direct telephone contact with ratepayers; and legal recovery against persistent non-payment, including progression through the Magistrates' Court and the Enforcement of Judgements Office, and bankruptcy proceedings. Ratepayers who are experiencing financial difficulties are encouraged to contact Land and Property Services (LPS) to discuss payment options, which can include restructuring current payment plans or establishing longer-term payment arrangements to enable the payment of rate arrears.

Mr Dunne: Thank you, Minister, for your answer. You recently spoke about wanting to create a rates system that is fair and equitable. Is it fair to raise rates for residents who may be faithfully paying each year whilst ignoring the £175 million of unpaid rates in the past financial year ?

Dr Archibald: It is not fair to say that we have ignored unpaid rates. The Department has in place a range of measures to tackle and reduce rating debt. It is something that we have set targets against, and the Department is committed to addressing it. However, it can be quite difficult to recover rating debt. There are a number of situations in which it can be nearly impossible to obtain the payment of outstanding rate debt. It is a process that is ongoing. We are putting resources into ensuring that we maximise the recovery of rate debt while ensuring that rates bills are paid.

Dr Archibald: Members will be aware that, when I was last in the Chamber for Question Time on 14 October, I highlighted that my short-, medium- and long-term proposals for the rating system were with the Executive for consideration. That remains the case. I had hoped that, by now, I would have secured Executive agreement on my proposals and, as a result, been in a position to update the House on the way forward.

Every pound that we spend on rate relief means reduced revenue for public services or higher rates bills for other homes and businesses. In that context, we must make sure that every rates support measure is achieving the desired policy outcome and is delivering for citizens and businesses. That is why the proposals that I brought forward outline my intention to look at every rates support measure that has been legislated for by the Executive. It is important to stress that that review does not mean removal. I intend to begin with small business rate relief, given its integral importance to our economy and small local businesses. Given the number of questions today about the impact of decisions in the autumn Budget, that is timely.

I am also conscious of Members' support in the House yesterday for the rejuvenation of our high streets and town centres. I want to work with Executive colleagues to build on the reintroduction of the enhanced Back in Business scheme and look at how we can help tackle the blight of vacant properties in our towns and cities, in conjunction with other Ministers and local councils.

The Executive are fast approaching a critical juncture for reaching decisions on those matters to allow sufficient time for delivering the changes so that they come into effect for April 2025. I hope that the Executive come to a decision quickly on my approach for the short, medium and long term and help me to get on with the job of making positive reforms to our rating system that are reflective of our economic environment.

Miss Brogan: Thank you, Minister, for your answer. Does the Minister believe that the rating system can support the rejuvenation of town centres?

Dr Archibald: All of us want to see our town centres and shopping areas thriving. The difference that a bustling business can make to a once-empty property on the main thoroughfare of a town is very clear. The enhanced Back in Business scheme, which was reinstated in May, aims to bring vibrancy, footfall and investment back to our high streets. My aim now is to build on the success of that scheme and look at how we continue to tackle the blight of vacant properties by working alongside Executive colleagues and commercial stakeholders to help to progress the regeneration of high streets and grow a sustainable decarbonised built environment that underpins the rates system.

I was heartened when I listened to the debate yesterday about the rejuvenation of high streets and town centres. Many of the areas that were touched on, including how we can help enhance access to cash, recognising that consumer preferences are changing and how to strategically address the issue of long-term derelict properties from a rating perspective, are contained in the proposals on my strategic road map on rating policy.

That is with the Executive for consideration.

My officials are working in partnership with a number of councils on the area of vacant units, including ascertaining the barriers to getting vacant properties reoccupied and brought back into use. I want to progress a reduction in rates relief for empty properties, but it needs to be sequenced with the other initiatives that I referred to to create the optimum environment for reoccupation, redevelopment or reuse. Given the cross-party support in the Chamber yesterday in those areas, I hope that my ministerial colleagues will support my proposals in that regard.

Mr Speaker: That concludes questions to the Minister of Finance.

Mr Mathison: I am glad to have the opportunity to make a winding-up speech on Alliance's amendment to the motion. While the original motion was highly critical of the RAISE programme's current approach to targeting and expressed no confidence that it would meet objective need, it seemed clear from the debate that there was some agreement on, at least, the principle that tackling educational underachievement should be a priority for the Education Minister. The disagreement was largely not around whether we should make the investment but on how the programme should invest and target the money. I suppose that, to an extent, we have some sort of starting point to work from.

I do not want to rehearse all the contributions to the debate, because there was broad agreement that the investment is welcome and that we want to see educational underachievement being tackled. I want to speak briefly on some of the Minister's comments. The Minister was clear that social disadvantage, poverty and deprivation is not the sole measure by which we can measure the likely prospects for educational attainment. I do not think that anybody across all the parties claimed that it was the only measure, but the point was made that that is the measure that is used in almost every other intervention that the Department makes. The Department's research, which was carried out this year on the back of the 'A Fair Start' recommendation, still came back and said that, until we come up with a better measure — the jury is still out on whether what the Department has come up with is a better measure — free school meals entitlement should remain as the one that is used.

As my colleagues set out, our amendment sought to find a pragmatic way through those issues. We agree that socio-economic background is the clearest and most straightforward way to measure likely future educational attainment. We do not agree that the programme will absolutely and fundamentally not deliver on the basis of objective need. For some areas and many children who will benefit from the investment, it may well achieve that aim. If we went to a full design of an entirely new programme, I would be concerned that that could cause unnecessary disruption and delay.

It is clear to me that the complex formula that the Department has used — I still do not think that that has been fully unpicked; it is not clear how all the different elements have been weighted — coupled with what I still maintain was the unhelpful publication of lists of schools that were potentially in the scope of the programme, has severely dented public confidence in the effectiveness of and rationale behind the targeting of the programme. At the very least, the Department needs to reset the narrative and clearly articulate how we have ended up in a place where confidence in the scheme is so low when it really should have been something that we all welcomed.

Research shows that free school meals entitlement remains a reliable indicator of educational attainment. I worry that the more layers and nuance we add, the more complicated we make the picture. Colleagues have already referred to the Northern Ireland Audit Office report in 2021, which showed that, throughout a child's journey in the education system, free school meals entitlement remains a reliable guide to future prospects of educational attainment.

I welcome and highlight the fact that it has been clearly articulated in the debate that it is not a schools-based programme. Hopefully, we can put some of that to bed. It is not pitting one school against another when it comes to who is in and who is out. We can, hopefully, all agree that the publication of the list was a deeply unhelpful intervention by the Department.

It is welcome that local communities will receive investment and make their own decisions about how to direct it to improve educational outcomes. Any locally targeted programme will undoubtedly create winners and losers. Unfortunately, that is inevitable. There is no way that £20 million will reach every child in Northern Ireland.

The challenge that we face here is that, in relation to the RAISE programme, people simply do not feel confident that the reasons that have been given are clear about why certain areas are being targeted and others are not. That is why we call on the Department at this early stage to review the criteria. If areas are excluded, yet we see the highest levels of deprivation being exhibited, the Department will need to look at it again. We need much clearer, much more robust reasons why that is the case. The Department should make the necessary changes to ensure that those living in our most deprived communities benefit most from the funding.

When officials came to the Committee before recess to discuss the issue, they were at pains at that stage, as was the Minister today, to emphasise that decisions were not about excluding any area but were to focus clearly on educational attainment rather than solely on socio-economic deprivation and avoid duplication. The fact that we are debating the same issues today in almost exactly the same terms as they were rehearsed in Committee suggests that Members been not fully persuaded on those points.

I will summarise by saying that I hope that the amendment receives support today. If supported, it would present a welcome reset of the debate. If the Department can come back in a timely fashion to update the House and the Committee on what it has done to address the concerns, to review the criteria and to ensure that the resource — the much-needed £20 million investment — is going to the communities and to the children and young people who need it most, we could revisit this with confidence that needs will be met on the basis of objective need.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): I call Danny Baker to conclude and make a winding-up speech on the motion. You have up to 10 minutes.

Mr Baker: Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

A chairde,

I want to open by thanking the many outstanding school teaching and non-teaching staff and our community and voluntary sector who strive daily to help children and young people reach their full potential despite the disadvantages that many pupils face.

A wide range of research shows that there is a strong link between persistent educational underachievement and socio-economic background. Young people who do not succeed at school are more likely to be unemployed, to suffer from poor health, to die young, to be a victim of crime or to have to deal with addiction. That means that tackling educational underachievement is vital in improving the outcomes of our most disadvantaged young people. It is also fundamental to improving our society.

At present, the North has a long tail of underachievement. That is the context in which the RAISE programme will be rolled out. It is clear from today's debate that many opinions exist in regard to the RAISE programme and how it aims to tackle underachievement. Any objective analysis demonstrates that the Minister and his Department, regardless of his facts, are reallocating funds in a manner that punishes poverty and rewards wealth.

Mr Carroll: I appreciate the Member giving way. On the theme of facts, facts, facts that the Minister alluded to, does the Member think that people may have gathered the Minister's intention on the basis of the list of schools that were deemed eligible put on the Department of Education website by the Minister's staff and team? Is that how people have drawn the conclusion that, as you said, some wealthy schools are gaining and some schools are not? It is from the Minister's own intervention that people have drawn those conclusions.

Mr Baker: Absolutely. Among that list, two thirds of grammar schools could avail themselves of the funding. Absolutely.

I have deep concerns about the data and the indicators that were chosen to identify the localities in which the programme will operate. They are flawed and not fit for purpose. Due to the cuts imposed from London, our education system has limited resources, and we should target any additional funding on where it is needed most. The need to tackle poverty, social inclusion and patterns of deprivation on the basis of objective need is woven into the Good Friday Agreement. However, it is evident that the Department is moving away from targeting objective need by putting less emphasis on the tried, tested and trusted indicator of socio-economic status: free school meal entitlement. That is despite the fact that research commissioned by the Department recommended that the use of free school meal entitlement should not be replaced as the primary indicator of disadvantage.

The RAISE programme promises a whole-community approach to reducing educational disadvantage. However, that is clearly not the case when many of the most disadvantaged communities have been left out. The Minister has focused on directing much-needed funding away from communities and children and young people who need it most. The emphasis on geography has been to the detriment of an emphasis on objective need.

There is also a concerning over-reliance on GCSE results in determining eligibility for the RAISE programme, even though a wide range of evidence demonstrates the value and importance of early intervention. If we are serious about tackling educational underachievement, we first must accept that poverty is the biggest indicator of it. The RAISE programme does not have that principle at its core.

We still do not know who came up with the new formula. The expert panel has been referenced several times. I would like to know what role it had, if any, in designing the eligibility formula.

Mr Sheehan: I thank the Member for giving way. In the long recitation of his facts, the Minister did not at any stage tell us what weighting was given to each of his criteria, nor did he give us any facts about the involvement of the 'A Fair Start' panel in the development of the model. Does the Member agree with that point?

Mr Baker: I agree 100%. We did not get those answers at Committee either.

We need a comprehensive plan that will deliver on objective need by giving poverty and deprivation the weighting that they deserve in determining what areas are eligible for funding or inclusion. Ultimately, the Minister must ensure that children and young people who need help and support most get it.

No one here is advocating that the funding should go by the wayside or that the programme should be scrapped. As my colleagues have said, it is time for the Minister to go back to the drawing board. The new formula is flawed, and we all know it. We still do not know what the Minister's plan is, because labels are not facts.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Blair): I ask Members to take their ease for a moment or two before we move on to the next item.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I have received notice from the Minister for Communities that he wishes to make a statement. Before I call the Minister, I remind Members that they must be concise in asking their question: it is not an opportunity for a debate or long introductions.

Mr Lyons (The Minister for Communities): Good luck with that, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

I will make a statement on additional funding for debt advice in Northern Ireland. Problem debt can have a devastating impact on individuals and families. It is harmful to physical and mental health and can take its toll on relationships with family and friends. About 12% of adults in Northern Ireland are in need of debt advice. Only a small proportion of those people receive the advice that they need, and they often seek it too late, due to the shame and stigma that are often associated with it. It is important that we do all that we can to highlight the importance of seeking help and to ensure that our debt advice services reach as many people in need as possible. As Minister for Communities, I want to make sure that support gets to the right people at the right time.

Debt advice in Northern Ireland is funded by a Treasury levy on the financial services industry that is ring-fenced for the provision of free debt advice services. His Majesty's Treasury allocated £2·08 million to fund debt advice services in Northern Ireland in 2024-25. The funding, allocated annually by Treasury, is calculated using a formula based on population and levels of need for debt advice as calculated by the Money and Pensions Service. The Northern Ireland debt advice service is managed by Advice NI via a grant agreement that is worth £1·53 million in 2024-25. The service provides regional delivery. Provision for local, community-based debt advice is sub-granted to local front-line advice organisations across the 11 council areas and regional support. Alongside that funding initiative, the Department recently increased the number of debt advisers working for the Northern Ireland debt advice service from 30 to 34·5 in recognition of the increasingly complex debt landscape.

Due to an additional HMRC allocation and a historical miscalculation of the debt levy, Northern Ireland has an additional £1·3 million to spend between now and March 2026. Today, I am pleased to announce that I will use that money to try something new. I do not believe that the Executive or my Department have all the answers or that we have a monopoly on expertise in this area. Local government has a role to play in the provision of some of the services. Many local organisations already play an important role in the area and can help us to deliver the services that people need.

Therefore, I am pleased to announce the launch of the integrated advice partnership fund.

The new fund will complement my Department's existing £6·6 million of annual regional and local advice funding, which goes out to a range of partners, including Advice NI and community advice providers. The £1·3 million fund will be delivered in partnership with all 11 councils in Northern Ireland to improve the uptake of free, high-quality debt advice in accessible locations. It will support early intervention and the development of local solutions.

Our debt landscape is evolving, and advice providers are dealing with increasingly complex cases. Local organisations that are close to the communities that they serve are best placed to meet need. Therefore, I will provide the funding to local councils, who will work with community advice providers and community organisations, such as Christians Against Poverty. Councils are at the coalface of the community and do a fantastic job of providing front-line services to our people. Therefore, I have allowed each council flexibility in how it chooses to use the funding within the objectives that will be set by my Department. Projects will be required to demonstrate partnership working and the delivery of debt advice in community settings, including face-to-face provision. By enabling organisations to work together, we can draw on their combined expertise to deliver tailored, responsive and targeted debt advice.

The new fund reflects my commitment to using every pound to its best effect. I want to make support available to people in every corner of Northern Ireland. By working closely with councils and community organisations, we can ensure that those who face financial difficulties are able to access the support that they need when they need it.

The integrated advice partnership fund is an opportunity to ensure that debt advice is more accessible and effective than ever before. It represents another step in our efforts to provide meaningful and much-needed support to those faced with debt. I look forward to seeing the projects that will be delivered by the fund; testing different ways of working; informing future advice delivery; and, most importantly, making a difference in the lives of people right across Northern Ireland.

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Minister for the statement. The Minister's intentions are good with the statement, but I am sure that he will agree that, when it comes to the wider problem, £1·3 million is like lifting a pebble off a mountain. I am sure the Minister will agree that Advice NI does a great job. Surely the funding would have been better spent by investing in Advice NI and its services because it could certainly do with it. Does the Minister agree?

Mr Lyons: Always negativity from Mr McCrossan. First, it is a good news story because additional funding is going to be made available. Secondly, it is time-limited, because it is mostly due to a miscalculation of funds that the extra resource is available. However, I am frequently told by Members about the importance of regional balance and of making sure that we spread our resources right across Northern Ireland. Therefore, I am trying something new. I am using the opportunity from the miscalculation and the additional funding that has become available to tie in the important work of councils, but, even more importantly, the work of those other organisations that are already working at the coalface. We have an opportunity to test whether there are additional models for the future. I believe that it is good news and something to be welcomed. It should not be taken as a slight on anyone else. I have always said that the Department needs to try new and innovative ways of making a difference. I believe that we will do that through the allocation of the funding in this way.

Mr Gildernew (The Chairperson of the Committee for Communities): I thank the Minister for the statement. I certainly welcome additional resources going into such an important area. Debt and its impact can be devastating for individuals and families. The Minister will be aware that there are very tightly controlled quality regulations for debt advice, and he has referred to the complexity of the cases. I also acknowledge the people who already work in the area. What discussions have you had with councils to assess their capacity to deliver without negatively impacting on the existing providers? How will you assess and evaluate the outcome of the new way of working?

Mr Lyons: Yes. As the Member will expect, I spoke to councils to make sure that there was an agreement in principle before we made the announcement, and that certainly is the case. There is a willingness to do it.

One of the reasons that we are doing it is to get evidence on whether the model can be taken forward in the future. Of course, we will analyse it and see what is able to be delivered. It is important that we take this opportunity to look at the other providers that are out there. For me, it is really important that we get into all parts of Northern Ireland and right into the heart of the community — health, education and church settings — to ensure that debt advice is available in the local areas that people find themselves in, because we have a problem with the uptake of that advice. That is why I am getting those providers involved. Of course, we will want to test the model and make sure that the funding is being spent well.

Mrs Erskine: I thank the Minister for his statement and welcome this move. Given the cut to the winter fuel payment, we could see increased demand for debt services this year. I thank the Minister, because he is thinking about support for people on the ground. Will he clarify exactly how much Fermanagh and Omagh District Council and Mid Ulster District Council will receive? Will he consider extending support beyond 2026 if the scheme is successful? In my council areas, each year, services are stretched and so is funding. This funding will therefore be of huge support to those services.

Mr Lyons: I am grateful to the Member for acknowledging that this is about getting into every part of Northern Ireland and bringing the advice to where people are. That is why it is so important to test the model to see whether it could happen in the future. Obviously, we only have the funding until 2026, but it is useful for us to consider whether such a model would be worth taking forward when that time comes and when we can re-evaluate the resources that we have.

On resources, I expected the Member to ask about her constituency because she always asks about it. I am happy to announce that Fermanagh and Omagh District Council will receive £86,802·84 and that Mid Ulster District will receive £105,828·12.

Ms Mulholland: Thank you very much, Minister. Like the Committee Chair, I welcome any penny that goes towards debt relief and advice. You mentioned that different councils will get different funding. Will you elaborate on the distribution? Will anything be built into the criteria to ensure that help reaches the most vulnerable groups, such as those with disabilities or those in rural areas who have difficulty accessing face-to-face debt advice?

Mr Lyons: The calculation came about following an analysis of population, deprivation and adults in need. That is how the funding formula was reached. Forty per cent is based on population, 40% is based on deprivation, using the income deprivation model, and the remaining 20% is based on the results of the adults in need of debt advice survey. That is why we have different calculations for different councils. There will, of course, be criteria for the fund. There will be a requirement to deliver holistic advice in community-accessible settings such as health centres, education establishments or churches. The organisations will need to be part of a collaborative partnership and demonstrate improved outcomes for the people who access the service. They will need to include an aspect of face-to-face or in-person delivery, which is very important, and be able to share learning to inform future approaches. The projects also need to be delivered by 31 March 2026.

Mr Allen: I am sure that the Minister, like many Members around the House, recognises that, in 2024, there is a vast array of lending options available to consumers, in particular, young people. In that vein, what engagement has he had with his colleague the Minister of Education on taking a preventative approach with younger people and providing advice and guidance in education settings?

Mr Lyons: I have not had any direct conversations with the Minister of Education on that, but discussions take place at official level. I am a big supporter of making sure that our young people are financially literate to make sure that they are aware of the perils of debt and have an understanding of spending. I am more than happy to continue that ongoing collaboration. If an intervention is needed at ministerial level between Minister Givan and me, I will be happy to do that.

Ms Ferguson: I, too, welcome the Minister's statement and the additional £1·3 million to expand and strengthen the debt advice available across the North, particularly in partnership with our councils. We know the great work that the councils have done with the Department over the years, particularly during COVID. We know that they can come up with really innovative approaches, so I am keen to hear whether there is flexibility around the submissions to the Department for allocations. What can the funding cover, and what flexibility can councils and local communities create? I would also be interested to know how much will go to the Foyle constituency.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Minister, answer whatever question you like. [Laughter.]

There were three.

Mr Lyons: I will remember as many as I can.

The whole point of doing this is that it will not be a one-size-fits-all approach. If it were, we would not need to send the service out to local councils or bring in their support. The whole point is that the service can be flexible, because the needs in, for example, Mid and East Antrim might be very different from those in Fermanagh, Omagh, Belfast or wherever. Flexibility will be built in. Councils can come up with ideas and proposals, and, as long as they fit in with what I outlined to Sian Mulholland, they will be acceptable. We want to work with people on this to make sure that we make the most difference in people's lives. That will be different depending on the area.

In the Member's constituency, I can confirm that the sum will be £114,548.04.

Mr Kingston: I commend the Minister for his innovative approach in establishing the integrated advice partnership fund and for recognising the local knowledge and expertise of our 11 councils, which will ensure that the additional £1·3 million from HM Treasury will be used to best effect in providing debt advice.

Minister, what formula was used to determine the breakdown of funding across the 11 councils? Perhaps the Minister has provided the detail; if he has already covered that, I would be grateful to know how much has been allocated to Belfast City Council.

Mr Lyons: That is another question that I anticipated. The funding is broken down as it is simply because I do not think that population alone takes account of the need that exists. The Member will understand that with regard to his constituency. Population is obviously important, but we have also taken into consideration deprivation and the number of adults who were estimated to be in need of debt advice.

I am happy to confirm that the sum that will be allocated to Belfast City Council for the service is £248,253.48.

Ms K Armstrong: Minister, money is always welcome. Thank you very much for bringing the funding forward for debt advice services in particular. As you said:

If we ask all 11 councils to promote the debt advice services that they will take forward, it will take a chunk out of that money. Is there any option for the Department to promote or advertise the scheme to ensure that more people will get the benefit of that money?

Mr Lyons: I am certainly happy to see what the councils propose and what we can do centrally on promotion. Some of that can be done cheaply on our social media channels, for example. There is an expectation that part of the funding will be used to promote the services that are available. That is another reason why it is good that we are bringing in the councils, which will have their own reach, and the other organisations that are already doing some of the work. They will be in a position to promote it as well.

I hope that Members will also take the opportunity to promote the services that are available. Unfortunately, people can often bury their heads in the sand on this issue. They can try to ignore the problems, but we need to tackle them head on and get in there early to help people, because that is how we will make a difference in the longer term. I encourage Members to do that with all our constituents.

Mr McHugh: Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as a ráiteas.

The statement is very welcome. The Minister alluded to two organisations that provide that type of advice at present. How can the Minister ensure that those organisations in the various areas and so on will work in tandem to ensure that we maximise the benefits in every respect?

Mr Lyons: I agree with what, I think, is the Member's point, which is that we do not want people to be in conflict or competition with one another. The measures are intended to be complementary, and I hope that that continues. Certainly, the funding that is available currently for those other organisations will continue to be there. However, I thought that this was a useful way to use the resources and make sure that alternatives are available here, as well as, perhaps, reaching further than those currently established. That is what, I hope, will happen.

Mr Clarke: Like most others, I welcome the statement. Our offices are extremely busy dealing with people who are struggling. In his statement, the Minister talked about making sure that support gets to the right people at the right time, and he referenced Christians Against Poverty. I take it from the comment in which he singled out that organisation that he puts value on the work that it has been doing in the past, prior to this funding becoming available, and that the fund will enhance the work that it has been doing across all of our communities.

Mr Lyons: Absolutely. I have seen at first hand the work of Christians Against Poverty in my constituency, and I am sure that others have had similar experiences. I was delighted to be at a celebration event recently in my constituency. Christians Against Poverty celebrated 10 years of helping people. If I may, I will take a moment to give a shout-out to some people in my constituency. Wendy and Sharon in Christians Against Poverty in Larne do a fantastic job of intervening, helping and changing lives. I do not say that lightly. The people who are affected find themselves at the lowest point in their life, and we have fantastic organisations that come in, help and truly transform the situation in which those people have found themselves. It is the case that we should want to support and link up with those who have a track record of making a real difference. That is why it is so important that the councils can partner with those fantastic organisations and, as I say, make a difference to people's lives.

Ms Dolan: This is a follow-up question to the Minister's previous answer. As the Minister mentioned in his statement, debt advice organisations such as Christians Against Poverty and St Vincent de Paul already provide a fantastic debt advice service. However, they, like others, struggle with the level of demand. How will the announcement support them to deliver the service?

Mr Lyons: Councils will receive an allocation for the fund, and then it will be up to the councils to partner with the organisations that can make a difference. Some of those organisations already do fantastic work, and the link-up between those can happen. As long as they are able to deliver that holistic advice in community-accessible settings, demonstrate improved outcomes for people, have face-to-face and in-person delivery and share learning to inform future approaches, they can get that support.

The funding should not be taken as resource to help them carry out the work that they do currently; it should be additional support, but, obviously, the additional funding can help, in the round, with what they are trying to achieve. It will be of real benefit. We have mentioned a couple of organisations, but there are many others. I am not being exhaustive in what I say, because we have many organisations. Some of them operate in only one part of Northern Ireland, perhaps. That is why it is so important that we are putting this out to the councils for them to partner. There may not be organisations that can deliver on behalf of everybody in Northern Ireland, but there are organisations that can deliver in specific areas. This is a good, localised way of making sure that we can support those who are in need.

Ms Forsythe: I thank the Minister for his statement. It is very welcome at this time of financial pressure across Northern Ireland, and I welcome the fact that the money can be used in this way.

I will ask two questions, if I may. I am interested to know what will be coming in the direction of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. To follow that, I am also interested to know what the process will be when councils make their proposals and the proposals come back to the Minister for assessment. How will we ensure that the community and voluntary sector and faith-based organisations have a fair shot across each council district?

Mr Lyons: Yes, I am happy to answer those questions. First, Newry, Mourne and Down District Council will receive £134,498·16, which will go a long way towards helping those who are in need in the area.

The money will be administered by councils. I am trying to give them as much flexibility as possible. I just need to ensure that they meet what will be in the memorandum of understanding and adhere to the key points that I outlined in answers to other questions. I am not seeking to tie anybody's hands. I get that there will be unique situations in each council area, and I want to make the process as flexible as possible. The ultimate aim is not just to get the money out and to get it to organisations but to help people, and that will be done in different ways in different areas, so I want to make sure that the process is as flexible as possible.

Ms McLaughlin: Minister, I welcome the £114,000 of additional moneys for debt advice services. I recently visited Foyle Foodbank. Food poverty, as you know, is a complex issue. It is often the result of debt incurred from unregulated lenders, many of whom are paramilitaries. Those paramilitaries act as gatekeepers in our communities. Some are even pushing women into prostitution so that they can pay their debt. How are you tackling that issue, apart from having cosy conversations with those paramilitaries? How are we tackling the causes of debt in our community so that we do not have to direct money at advice centres? We need to get to the core of the problem.

Mr Lyons: It is disappointing to hear the approach that the Member has taken when we have a good news story here. I note that she missed the previous good news story. When I announced 270 jobs in her constituency, she did not turn up to hear the announcement, but I am glad that I was able to make it. I am also glad that I will be able to deliver further support for her constituency.

The Member asked about how we tackle the issues. I agree with her that we need to tackle paramilitary activity and paramilitarism. We need to make sure that people transition. We need to make sure that there is a route for them to do that. I take the Pledge of Office seriously. It states that I should do everything that I can to support those who want to transition away from paramilitary activity. There is, of course, a role for the PSNI, and we need to take that dual approach, whereby we take action against paramilitary activity but also encourage those who are prepared to transition to move away from paramilitarism.

There is a bigger question here, is there not? Ultimately, it comes down to how we deal with deprivation and poverty in our society. That is why I will bring an anti-poverty strategy to the Executive in January. That was a commitment in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. No Minister has delivered on it yet, but, like with so many other things, I am delivering it on behalf of people in Northern Ireland and look forward to bringing forward a strategy that will prevent people from falling into poverty, help those who find themselves in poverty and make sure that there is a route for people to exit poverty. All of that is necessary, but, right now, I am helping those who find themselves in debt by trying something innovative to make sure that funding gets out to all parts of Northern Ireland, including the Foyle constituency.

Mr Brett: I thank the Minister for his announcement. It is an important initiative that will be even more important this winter as a result of the decision taken by the Opposition's sister party in Parliament to cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.

Minister, how can we ensure that the funding that is awarded to councils will be spent fairly and equitably? Advice provision given to Belfast City Council is currently not spent fairly and equitably or on the basis of need. Compared with what is given to other parts of the city, parts of my constituency in lower north Belfast get absolutely zero funding to provide dedicated advice or to recruit debt workers. How can the Minister ensure that the communities that need support get it and that funding is not just put into certain parts of Belfast?

Mr Lyons: I am disappointed to hear that that is the case in Belfast City Council. That absolutely should not be the way that it is done. I want to make sure that it gets to everybody who needs access to it, wherever they live in Northern Ireland. People should not be discriminated against on the basis of where they are from. Having taken that comment on board, I will look at the memorandum of understanding that we have with councils to make sure that there is a fair and equitable distribution, because people will need the help.

The Member is absolutely right to highlight the fact that the cut to the winter fuel payment that was made by the Labour Government — the SDLP's sister party — has the potential to cause extra difficulty for people this winter. It is right that we stood against that and made our opposition known, but now we need to make sure that we have help for those who are in need.

Mr Harvey: I am pleased to hear the Minister mention faith-based organisations. Does he agree that faith-based organisations play a significant role in addressing many of the challenges that face our society today? Does he agree that the Government should work further with the sector to deliver on those issues?

Mr Lyons: I absolutely agree. We often hear about the voluntary and community sectors, but I believe that that should encompass the voluntary, community and faith sectors, because faith organisations and the Churches play a huge role in how we deal with and tackle some of the most pressing issues that face people in Northern Ireland. I will always be a voice for faith communities, which do so much work in that area and have often felt that their contribution has been ignored by government. I am more than happy to ensure that we give that recognition and that there are opportunities for faith-based organisations to become more involved.

The Member did not ask, but I am more than happy to confirm to him that Ards and North Down Borough Council will receive £105,167·52, as well as what he heard previously for Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, both of which, I am sure, he is interested in.

Mr Carroll: I wonder how far the £1·3 million will go, given the prevalence of debt in our communities. Will the Minister clarify whether that money includes training for new staff? In light of his announcement, how will he ensure that people get access to independent advice, including supporting people who may not feel comfortable going to get advice in churches?

Mr Lyons: I do not see why there should be any issue with getting the impartial advice that people need. It has certainly been my experience that churches are exceptionally welcoming places. The people whom I have encountered in Church organisations are often the most concerned about the issues around poverty. I will highlight and celebrate the work that they do and not, in any way, denigrate the contribution that they make or say that they are unwelcoming places. It is important that we put that on the record.

The Member says that it is only £1·3 million and might not go that far, but it is £1·3 million that we have been able to deliver. It will make a difference in each of those council areas, and, instead of always finding something negative to say, perhaps we should take a moment to recognise that here we have some good news for people across Northern Ireland.

Mr McAleer: I welcome the Minister's announcement. I am sorry for missing the start of his statement, but I have read it. Will there be any opportunity to fund the work of Rural Support, which is a charity that provides a lot of debt advice and support to farming families?

Mr Lyons: One of the benefits of getting the funding out to councils is that they can identify the partners that they can work with. I am sure that there are organisations, such as the one that the Member has mentioned, that perhaps do not operate on a Northern Ireland-wide basis but operate in different areas. Of course, they can be partners with the local council to provide those services, if they can meet the criteria that I set out.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Minister. That concludes questions on the statement. I invite Members to take their ease for a moment.

Mr O'Toole: I beg to move

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes to propose and up to 10 minutes in which to wind. All other Members who are called to speak will have five minutes. Matthew, please open the debate on the motion.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Audit Office's update report on the implementation of recommendations from the RHI inquiry and on the broader subject of improved accountability and, indeed, reform of Stormont and its institutions.

When I became an MLA in early 2020, the institutions had been collapsed for three years. In large part, although not exclusively, that was a consequence of the RHI debacle, in which large amounts of public money were put at risk; severe failures in governance, transparency, accountability and Civil Service performance were exposed; and public trust in our institutions was disastrously compromised. Just a couple of months after I became an MLA and just as the COVID pandemic was breaking out, upstairs in Parliament Buildings, Sir Patrick Coghlin, a retired judge, presented his findings in a very long document, 'The Report of the Independent Public Inquiry into the Non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme'. He found that there had been multiple failures at official and political levels.

At that time, the institutions had just been re-established. We were told that we would have a new decade and a new approach. We are now halfway through that decade. The new approach that we were promised was a systems change in government performance, a more fit-for-purpose and professional Civil Service and an overhaul of accountability and transparency at Stormont. Now that we are halfway through that decade and have just had an update report from the Audit Office on delivery against those inquiry targets, it is an apposite moment for the Assembly to reflect on progress that has or, as might be the case, has not been made against those targets and recommendations and also to reflect on how well we have been doing on the connected challenges of accountability and reform.

I intend to touch on not only the NIAO report but broader questions of accountability, reform and good governance. Five years into the new decade that we were promised in 2020, and nine months into the term of the restored Executive, it is remarkably better that we have a functioning Executive and Assembly, but, clearly, that, by itself, is not sufficient to deliver good governance. We need to be robust and honest about where we have, and have not, made progress.

I will start with the findings of the NIAO report. It is clear that most of the recommendations of the Coghlin report from the RHI inquiry, which cost millions of pounds of public money and consumed huge amounts of energy, have either been implemented or are being implemented. However, underneath that headline finding, we see a more concerning picture. The NIAO report says:

Nearly half of the key recommendations of the Coghlin report have not been fully implemented. Of those, there are five recommendations where the NIAO finds that the planned actions that the Department of Finance and the Civil Service have undertaken to complete will not meet the conclusions and recommendations of Sir Patrick Coghlin.

Perhaps more startling is that the Executive subcommittee that was established to implement those reforms and, indeed, deal with the broader questions of Stormont reform and Civil Service reform has not met in four years. Four years. That says a lot about the commitment of the Executive that was created in 2020. Before others pull me up on it, there was an SDLP Minister in that Executive, so there is a degree of collective responsibility, but I hope that colleagues from other parties will be as fulsome and mature as the Opposition have been in taking responsibility for their parties' role in improving how we do things. Those are stark findings.

The report provides a fairly damning assessment of the Executive's seriousness about continuing the work of delivering good governance and delivering on the recommendations of the RHI inquiry report. That bleak picture has been painted. The RHI scheme has become synonymous with poor governance, poor financial management, mismanagement and lack of accountability and transparency here at Stormont. Therefore, it is incumbent on us all to do what we can to prove to the public who sent us here that we mean what we say when we say — people do say — that we are committed to a new approach and to improving accountability and transparency here. We need to redouble our efforts to respond properly — I hope that the Minister, in her remarks, will do so — to what the NIAO said in last month's report, and to re-establish, as our motion calls for, the Executive subcommittee on reform. However, that will not be enough.

I want to talk more broadly about the broad picture of accountability and scrutiny in this place. It is not just about the narrow questions of delivering against the Audit Office's findings. In the past few weeks, we have seen more damning examples of the failure of this place to do accountability properly, including in a Committee, where the First Minister came to give evidence and members were prevented from asking questions. Those were questions that the First Minister had said that she had come to answer, on the basis of transparency, but then refused to answer, citing legal advice. No legal advice prevents any Member from asking a question. Unless there are live court proceedings and a clear legal imperative not to, legal advice would not prevent a Minister from giving an answer. A chilling precedent was set at that Committee. It was particularly chilling to see a First Minister appear to warn a Committee Chair that MLAs should be restrained from asking questions. Whatever your persuasion and whatever party to which you belong, we have to be honest about the seriousness of that precedent. That was deeply discomfiting for me, not just as leader of the Opposition but as a citizen of this place, coming after the RHI debacle. We need to be honest about that.

We also saw a monitoring round being published in the days before a general election. In Scotland, it was made very clear that a financial statement — a statement that was of much less import than the monitoring round here, which was reported by the BBC as being a mini Budget — could not be published because pre-election guidance prevented anything that would compete for news with election candidates. In this place, it was rushed out. In the Great Hall, there was a press conference, at which the Finance Minister, the First Minister and the deputy First Minister presented what amounted to a mini Budget three days before the UK general election.

When I asked the head of the Civil Service about that just a couple of weeks ago at the Finance Committee, she told me that it was not her place to "critique" the actions of Ministers. It is the place of the head of the Civil Service and the most senior civil servants to defend Civil Service impartiality; to ensure that there is proper accountability; and to ensure that standards in this place and in our institutions, including pre-election guidance, are adhered to. If the speech that I am giving is uncomfortable for Members or senior civil servants, that, I am afraid, is not my problem. It is our job to do accountability and scrutiny properly. Since we returned, we have not done that properly. The Opposition intend to continue to do our job.

We have also seen, since we returned, a failure to deliver on reform.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Order. You have started to get to reform, which is in your motion.

Mr O'Toole: I am coming back to it.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I would appreciate it if you could, because —

Mr O'Toole: I am coming back to that.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Yes. You need to lead by example, Matthew. Thank you.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I intend to speak clearly to our motion. It sometimes makes people uncomfortable when we talk about those things. Transparency and accountability matter, but Assembly reform also matters. That is why the Coghlin report was clear; it stated that the Assembly should consider the steps that are needed to strengthen its scrutiny role. One thing that would strengthen our scrutiny role is preventing parties from being able to collapse these institutions at the drop of a hat.

After we came back, on our first Opposition day, we prioritised Assembly reform. The two big parties united to kill that proposal, but of more concern is the fact that the third party in the Executive, which has talked consistently about reform, has clearly failed to put it on the agenda in the Executive, because it is not mentioned once in the Programme for Government. All of this is about clarity, honesty and accountability to the people who send us here. Before the election, the Alliance Party told the people who sent it here with a handsome complement of MLAs that it was going to prioritise reform. So far as I can see, not a jot or tittle about reform has been placed on the agenda at the Executive. We need to get serious in this place. Our job is not simply to come here and talk through —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Matthew, your time is up.

Mr O'Toole: — meaningless motion after meaningless motion; our job is —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Time is up.

Mr O'Toole: — to do scrutiny and accountability —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Matthew.

Mr O'Toole: — and to improve the reputation —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Your time is up.

Mr O'Toole: — of this place. I commend the motion. Thank you very much.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Excellent.

Miss Brogan: The RHI scandal represented an outrageous failure of those behind the scheme not only to operate in a responsible and transparent manner but to make themselves accountable and take responsibility for those failures. The ongoing legacy of RHI not only damaged public confidence in the institutions of the Assembly and the Executive but confidence in politics here as a whole. As my party's environment spokesperson, I find it particularly egregious that the scandal damaged the public perception of renewable energy support schemes in general. It was only right and proper that a full public inquiry, which was called by a previous Sinn Féin Finance Minister, was held into the flawed scheme. I commend the civil servants and others who worked tirelessly on that inquiry for three years.

The recommendations that were made as a result of that inquiry were sensible and reasonable, and they represented much-needed institutional reform. Significant progress has been made in implementing those recommendations, but there is no doubt that there is still more to do. To that end, it is worth remembering that the report's recommendations were made on the cusp of a global pandemic. There was then the absence of the Assembly and Executive for almost two years and the endless efforts of the British Government to strip funding here to the bone, all of which made it much more difficult to implement the recommendations.

Against that backdrop, civil servants have still managed to implement a significant number of the recommendations. I understand that the Finance Minister can assure us that the majority of the outstanding recommendations are largely complete and are just awaiting final checks and authorisation. Still, it is important that the Executive forge ahead with ensuring that the entirety of the report is implemented and, crucially, that the public can see those changes being made and see that they are working. Those are crucial issues in restoring public confidence in politics and ensuring that governance here runs as effectively and efficiently as possible.

The Minister and her Department should have the full support of the Assembly in those endeavours.

Ms Forsythe: When the RHI inquiry concluded, over four years ago, the Democratic Unionist Party accepted the findings and noted that the recommendations that it contained were a "critical staging post" towards fixing systemic problems identified. Whilst it was right that there was accountability at a political level, the RHI report identified a catalogue of errors and opportunities that were missed by many people at many different times. It referenced criticisms that cover almost every aspect of governance by officials. The list includes: accuracy of documents, misleading ministerial advice, skills mismatches between staff, continuity of staff, lack of commercial awareness, a poor culture of record-keeping, questionable financial literacy and many more issues. The recommendations were sensible and self-explanatory.

Addressing those weaknesses is fundamental to good governance. Changing behaviours and practices and overcoming what went before promptly should have been prioritised. Two years ago, when the Northern Ireland Audit Office provided its previous assessment of progress, we made it clear that, in the same way that the political establishment had a duty to deal with failings on its part during the RHI period, the leadership of the Civil Service could not simply abdicate responsibility for addressing its failings. That remains our position.

The Northern Ireland Audit Office report was published last month, some four years on from the original report and recommendations. It was incredibly disappointing to read its findings that highlighted the fact that some recommendations remain outstanding and that it is unlikely that all the inquiry's recommendations will be fully implemented. Out of 42 recommendations, 26 have been implemented, with a further 11 likely to be implemented in the future, and the planned actions by Departments in relation to five recommendations are noted as being unlikely to fully address the inquiry's concerns. That is extremely disappointing.

I will look at the five recommendations, the actions on which are unlikely to fully address the inquiry's concerns. One notes:

projects. To me, providing that challenge is a fundamental, critical aspect of any sort of project management. It is difficult to understand why the Department of Finance would not accept that recommendation.

Another recommendation is the provision of:

The fact that that has not been rolled out is difficult to understand. Why would you not want to train all staff on what is commercially sensitive? As we all know, anyone at any level of an organisation could come into contact with commercially sensitive information at any time.

Another recommendation was that Departments should conduct their own governance reviews and that the leader should "set the tone" for strong governance. The failure to accept that recommendation is very concerning as well, because I agree with the Audit Office that the leader should set the tone and that strong governance requires self-review.

The final recommendation that has not been accepted and is not likely to be fully addressed by the planned actions relates to record-keeping. That is very concerning, and, again, a light was shone on that issue in recent months.

The progress on the recommendations is highly concerning, and I ask the Finance Minister to explain further in her response to the debate why the inquiry's concerns are unlikely to be addressed.

What has changed in the Northern Ireland Civil Service? Why was it not a priority in 2020 to deliver on the significant findings and recommendations for urgent reform? Why are some recommendations being disregarded now? The inquiry and the recommendations are incredibly important to rebuilding public confidence in how our Senior Civil Service does business. What sort of message does it give to the public that, four years on, the changes have not been made, and it looks as though some may never be made?

The management of human resources in the Civil Service is a shared service function of the Department of Finance. It is the Finance Minister's responsibility to ensure that the practices are improved. The head of the Civil Service has a key role to play in that. Strong leadership is needed, and I urge the Minister to work closely with the head of the Civil Service to address the matter across all Departments. We must collectively demonstrate that lessons have been learned. The DUP will support the establishment of any mechanisms that will appropriately facilitate the change and deliver the learning and improvement that is needed at the heart of the Civil Service.

Mr Honeyford: I said in a debate just before recess that RHI is the subject that causes dread and fear in the Assembly, but it is important that we deal with the past not for the sake of ticking a box or having a report but to actually allow us to move forward and build confidence in the Assembly for the future.

The Audit Office report highlights the ridiculously slow speed of implementation, and that is made worse when the Assembly does not sit. The report reinforces the damage that the collapse of the Assembly has had on the speed of progress and highlights the delays that happen. Work just stops, and we then try to play catch-up in the time when we are sitting again. It is time that we realise real reform of these institutions.

Why is it important to deal with RHI and to fully implement the report and the recommendations? It is not just about looking at the past; it is about learning from the past. Equally, it is about looking to the future and providing confidence. We can stand up and rant like the leader of the Opposition has just done, but we are achieving nothing. We are failing to deliver the change that we require and that the public deserve.

Mr O'Toole: Will the Member give way?

Mr Honeyford: Yes, OK.

Mr O'Toole: I am happy to be accused of ranting

but I want to ask something specific since we are having a debate about achieving things. The Member's party put out a response to the Programme for Government yesterday. Why did none of that response, which was made public, call for specific, measurable reform proposals to be in the Programme for Government? I am not aware that there are any.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Honeyford: Thank you for the extra minute.

We are the party of reform, and we have been talking about it for a long time. The leader of the Opposition stood up a second ago and said that the Opposition have not been working well and that he hopes that they will start now. I think that the rest of us agree with that.

Mr O'Toole: What?

Mr Honeyford: If you read Hansard, I think that you will find that that was what was said.

Change happens when we work together. The public and our future renewables sector need to be given the confidence that the Departments here are over the detail of what went wrong to allow us to learn lessons and provide assurance for the wider investor that, as we move into new renewable schemes, those schemes are protected. While it is easy to have a dig at the SDLP or at the DUP for creating RHI in the first place, the public need to have the assurance that we, as a collective Assembly, are grown-up enough to work to sort out the issues and move forward while building confidence in the Assembly rather than just having a go. We need to be able to close down RHI while respecting and looking after those who legitimately went into that scheme in good faith. I met some of those owners in the past number of weeks. At the same time as learning from the past, we need to make sure that those people are looked after as we go forward and learn the lessons from the 2020 inquiry.

The Audit Office report indicates that 62% of the inquiry recommendations have now been implemented compared with 43%. Diane Forsythe named a couple of those, and I absolutely agree with her that some of them are necessary and fundamental requirements. However, we need to get on with this, implement the remaining recommendations from the report and move forward.

Unfortunately, the debate a couple of weeks ago on RHI highlighted that the Department for the Economy has further to go on this to bring confidence to our Committee, the Assembly and the public as a whole. The PAC report on the lack of progress in the Department of Finance also highlights that. I said in the debate a couple of weeks ago that I want to support the Minister and want to deliver better for people, but there must be transparency from the Departments to build that confidence and to give us confidence. Actually, on RHI, there is a case that the Department needs to go even further and be absolutely transparent about the issues that we are dealing with and bring full transparency to the Committee and the Assembly so that there is no doubt that all the information is in front of us so that we can make a clear judgement that is based on evidence.

I appreciate that there is a bit of political drama when it comes to the three letters "RHI", and that is what you get in this place, but let us not forget — I want to emphasise this — that people are suffering because of that scheme; they went into it legitimately and are now left with the consequences. Our goal should be to learn from this, to see the reform coming through the Assembly and to look after those people as we move towards closure of the scheme.

All Departments should work together to help decarbonise the region and give us a cleaner environment in which to live, which was the scheme's original purpose. We should look after and protect our environment. The energy sector need to see growth, which has stagnated, and our public need to have energy security. We need to expand quickly if we are to meet our renewables target of 80% by 2030, and we do not have time to waste or for there to be more drama and delay. Rather, we need to move on and learn from the past.

Let us therefore keep our focus on the prize that brings about reform and that leaves the past in the past. We should look after those who were caught up in the scheme and implement the Audit Office proposals quickly in order to give people confidence and to grow confidence in the Assembly and in any future renewable scheme that is introduced.

Ms D Armstrong: I thank the Members who tabled the motion, which addresses the Northern Ireland Audit Office's second report on progress made on implementing the RHI public inquiry recommendations. The motion also addresses the critical need for good governance, scrutiny and — here is that word again — transparency in the Assembly.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: the RHI debacle damaged public confidence in our institutions and in this place. Institutional failings, alongside a lack of accountability and responsibility from certain corners of our political sphere, not only failed those who signed up to the scheme but unearthed a series of failings of governance in this institution.

The findings of the Northern Ireland Audit Office's second report, which was published on 15 October, actively demonstrate the urgent need for action. As other Members have said, the report is a damning indictment of the lack of progress made on a number of key Audit Office recommendations. The report makes clear that the Department of Finance has not acted with sufficient pace to implement fully the recommendations following the RHI inquiry almost four and half years ago. That should be extremely concerning, especially when we want to restore public confidence in our institutions. We must implement the report's recommendations in full and without further delay. Partial measures or superficial reforms will not suffice. Rather, we need to demonstrate a genuine commitment to rectifying the mistakes of the past and ensure that such failures do not occur again.

A number of key recommendations must be addressed, such as inadequate risk management, oversight shortcomings and issues in Departments with cultural resistance. The report also highlights the fact that the Executive subcommittee on reform has not met since 2020. That is a glaring oversight that must be addressed immediately. The Minister must urgently address the deficiencies identified in the report, including by re-establishing the Executive subcommittee on reform and ensuring that it meets regularly to oversee the implementation of the recommendations. It is time to turn the page on RHI and get our institutions back on track. Only the Minister is holding us back. Let us commit to the proposed reforms and work together to rebuild the public's faith in our institutions.

Mr Frew: The following point has been missing from this debate so far. It is important to note that there are many hard-working individuals in the Northern Ireland Civil Service who contribute daily and substantially to society, but they, just like everyone else, are being failed, and the Northern Ireland Civil Service is in serious need of reform and modernisation. When we get an Audit Office report such as this one, the Assembly needs to sit up and take notice. Although the Finance Minister has had a difficult job since she took up her post, not taking notice is one of her biggest weaknesses. I believe that her Department is letting her down badly in that regard. We therefore need strong leadership in ministerial positions in order to get a grip on the situation.

The Audit Office report is damning, and there is a fear that its findings will not get covered adequately in the debate. I will therefore place on record what the Audit Office report states.

In paragraph 19, the Audit Office states:

Paragraph 20 states:

The Audit Office is challenging the Department of Finance's own findings, The Audit Office assessed:

In paragraph 21, the Audit Office wishes to draw attention to the fact that the:

the Department of Finance report in March 2024. Here is a report that the Department of Finance produced in March, yet the Audit Office, mere months later, cannot get access to those details and records. That is damning.

Paragraph 22 states:

One month later, the information and data is absent. Where is the information?

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Member for giving way and for drawing attention to some of the clear failings. Will the Member agree that this stinks of lessons that have not been learned by the Civil Service and Departments across Northern Ireland, given the huge crisis that was inflicted on our people as a result of RHI a few years ago?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Member has an extra minute.

Mr Frew: Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. Yes, I concur that there are failings here, and the failures continue. This is not just something that happened in the past where failure was identified and we have drawn a line under it. We continue every day to see failure in this place. Every day.

I will go to two of the recommendations. Recommendation 39 states:

Only a matter of weeks ago, we saw the Economy Minister introducing RHI regulations, and the cry from every other party in this place was that they did not have enough detail or enough of the evidence required to make the decisions and vote positively for that legislation. We have had the Justice Minister bring half a Bill to the scrutiny Committee and the Assembly. The Minister has not given the Committee all the clauses that she intends to put in the Bill, yet she expects the scrutiny Committee to scrutinise the Bill — half a Bill. It seems that we have learnt nothing from the inquiry, and the Audit Office report proves that succinctly.

Also in the Department of Finance, an interim transformation board is advising the Minister on how it allocates £235 million of available funds over a five-year period. The board has already stripped away 18 of those projects, yet, when the Committee for Finance asks for letters and correspondence from Jayne Brady, head of that transformation board, to the Minister, the scrutiny Committee is denied access to and sight of that correspondence.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Member's time is up.

Mr Frew: That sums it up perfectly.

Mr McGrath: In any other place in the world, the story of a state-subsidised scheme to encourage renewable heat would be a humdrum filler. It would appeal to a small section of people and would not encourage much by way of interest or remarkable headlines. Yet, somehow or another, only a few years ago, that very matter was the catalyst for the collapse of the Government here, and it has become synonymous with dysfunction, alarming levels of ineptitude and financial inequality. The last Member to speak hit the nail on the head with a number of those examples. One has to wonder, as many Members have said today, what has actually been learned from that process and how much has changed when it comes to dysfunction.

The renewable heat scheme should have been straightforward, yet it exposed Government Ministers who were not across their brief and civil servants who were out of their depth, all of which was finally brought to light by a respected local journalist and a whistle-blower. It is important to note that it was not brought to light by those who were administering the scheme working out that they had done wrong and needed to change it. It was not their effort to say, "We have to put right something that we did wrong". It took a journalist to amplify that and get the change that was required.

In an effort to address the scheme's failings and ensure that they were not repeated, Sir Patrick Coghlin was charged with leading an inquiry into that scheme. His final report set out all of the recommendations aimed at overhauling practices and implementing safeguards to prevent future governance failures. However, a lot of the damage had already been done, because it was not just wood pellets that went up in smoke as a result of RHI. Trust in our political institutions and political leaders went up in smoke, and trust in the Chamber went to pot as a result of what took place.

In the eyes of the public, the saga had all the hallmarks of a Government doomed to fail: political leaders not seeking the common good; the inequality of overseeing a scheme that some could exploit for profit; and the waste of millions of pounds of public money. Given that Sinn Féin collapsed this place over the RHI scandal and has held the Finance Ministry since Sir Patrick Coghlin's report was published, I would have thought that it would be eager to implement the report's recommendations and help to restore trust in politics. It has the ability to do so through the brief that it has. Yet, as has been demonstrated, many, many years later we still have to wait for the recommendations to be fully implemented.

As has been said, 40% of the recommendations are not fully implemented, and five have not even been started. Just as it took a journalist to find out what was happening with RHI, it has taken the Audit Office report to find out that things have not been implemented. It seems that we just do not learn lessons about being open and getting on with the work that we have to do. We know that reform is a slow burn in most places, but, my God, in this place, it is even slower. The Executive's process of reform has frozen solid. That is such a surprise when, so often, it is Executive parties that shout the loudest about the need for reform.

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Member for giving way. He makes important and valid points. Maybe the Minister will shine some light on the fact that the subcommittee that was established to ensure that the recommendations were implemented has not met in this mandate. Does the Member agree that that is appalling, given what was at stake and what was lost as a result of RHI?

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: The Member has an extra minute.

Mr McGrath: Thank you. As the debate goes on, we learn about more and more things that have not taken place. Yet, a massive light has been shone on this, and it asks, "What are you doing? Why is this not happening?" That is a disgrace.

As I was saying, one of the greatest disgraces is seeing those who shout most loudly about reform being more than happy to trot in and take their ministerial positions, get their wages and their spads and not ask for a single commitment to reform in return, yet they will often stand up and say that it is their raison d'être. You just have to make sure that people weigh that up.

The public have a very simple message for the Executive: just get on with it. Do the reform that is required and make sure that there is openness and transparency, and let us build the necessary faith that the public should have in these public institutions.

Mr Gaston: Every time Stormont collapses and comes back, the public are assured and promised that it is the dawning of a new day for the institutions and that things will be different this time around. Following the publication of the RHI inquiry report, the then First Minister, Arlene — now Baroness — Foster, in a debate in the Chamber, pledged:

The Baroness has moved on, but many of the problems identified in the RHI report, as the motion rightly outlines, remain. The Audit Office report makes damning reading in that regard. For the sake of time, I will only read into the record recommendation 5:

The Audit Office report is particularly concerning when it comes to record-keeping in this place. Paragraph 19 of its executive summary states:

I also highlight the section of the Audit Office report that says:

Paragraphs 1.9 to 1.11 of the report highlight the fact that that group was set up as the result of an RHI report recommendation that the Assembly consider:

The group's report said that it wanted to strengthen the Assembly's scrutiny role — really? — and ability to "delve into the detail" — really? — through "appropriate questions" — really? Have we seen that in the Executive Office Committee? Heaven forbid some questions might be classed as difficult by the Chairperson. My experience since coming to the House is of the Statutory Committee for the Executive Office, which does not believe in scrutiny; rather, it protects witnesses from questions. It is a Committee that has a system whereby the Chair meets a witness who is due to appear before the Committee without consulting, much less gaining the approval of, the Committee. It is a Committee that thinks that it is appropriate to submit questions to a witness in advance rather than using the powers at its disposal to compel a witness to appear. It is a Committee that is more interested in protecting the process than in delving into the detail.

I remind the House that the only legislation to arise from the RHI inquiry came from my predecessor, Jim Allister. In recent days, I have heard some Members claim that, because his Act introduced a requirement for Ministers to have a record of meetings, Committee Chairpersons are not expected to keep such a record. I want to nail that falsehood ahead of tomorrow's Committee meeting: it deliberately misleads.

The fact that a Minister is required to keep a record does not absolve Committees from having their own record, particularly when, as the report highlights, departmental record-keeping remains appalling. From my short time —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Time is up, Timothy.

Mr Gaston: — in the Assembly, I agree with other Members —

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: Timothy, time is up.

Mr Gaston: — that it appears we have learned nothing from the RHI debacle.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: OK. Thank you.

Mr Carroll: As we have heard, the Audit Office found that only 26 of 42 recommendations from the RHI inquiry report have been implemented more than four years after its conclusion and at a cost of tens of millions of pounds to the taxpayer, and that, based on the action to date, it is unlikely that all the inquiry's recommendations will ever be met in full — maybe that is the intention. The report uncovered an unacceptable lack of progress but also found that basic record-keeping by Stormont Departments has got worse since 2022, which is shocking but will maybe not be surprising to those who have received some interesting answers to Assembly questions in recent months.

At the Finance Committee recently, I highlighted the fact that recommendation 39 of the report has still to be implemented. Recommendation 39 states:

The fact that not reading the legislation was one of the key defences of the proponents of RHI at the time, and that that recommendation has not been implemented, is absolutely mind-boggling. There was a cacophony of excuses from the head of the Civil Service when I asked her why it had not been implemented. I am still none the wiser. Children are often scolded for not reading their homework, but Ministers who do not read their legislation are told, "Keep on not doing that". The fact that the Executive are incapable of meeting such a basic requirement beggars belief.

Another important recommendation that has yet to be acted on relates to the need for a level of independent scrutiny. The RHI inquiry report stated that departmental project boards should have representation from people who are not responsible for day-to-day project management and who can challenge decision-making. Again, the Audit Office says that that recommendation is unlikely to ever be implemented.

It is worth remembering that the key architect of the RHI scheme has embarked on a career as a public speaker. Arlene Foster recently advertised herself as a renewable energy expert for a fee of £10,000 a day: you could not make this stuff up. The Executive have not only failed to learn lessons from RHI, but some are literally capitalising on it. The term "failing upwards" comes to mind. The Executive also appear to be obstructing access to key information, as others have mentioned. The Audit Office reported difficulties in accessing sufficient and adequate information as part of its review. Again, that is shocking but, in this place, not surprising.

As Members have said, the Executive subcommittee on reform last met in December 2020. Given the endless obfuscation, dither and delay in implementing the report's recommendations, it is time that that subcommittee is re-established and that all the recommendations from the Audit Office report are implemented.

It is also worth mentioning that it was recently announced that Moy Park, which was central to the RHI scheme and had half of its poultry houses benefiting from it, had made mega profits. Our public services and citizens should not be at the mercy of dangerous and profitable corporations like Moy Park. People pay their taxes, their rates and their fair share, and Moy Park should do the same. We should never forget that, under the watchful eye of the Executive, whilst empty chicken sheds were heated, thousands of people died every year because of fuel poverty.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I call the Minister of Finance to respond to the debate. Minister, you have up to 15 minutes.

Dr Archibald (The Minister of Finance): Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I welcome the opportunity presented by the debate to update Members on the action taken following the RHI inquiry report and to set out some of the significant progress made to date. At the same time, I recognise that more work needs to be done. I am committed to addressing the remaining recommendations in the context of wider transformation, including continuing development and change in the Civil Service.

The recommendations of the RHI inquiry informed an extensive body of change in the Civil Service, the bulk of which has been implemented in the unprecedented context of the COVID pandemic, in the absence of functioning political institutions and against significantly constrained budgetary situations. Members will recall that the inquiry report was published just the week before the COVID lockdown was announced. The pace and intensity of the work put in by Ministers and officials to pivot and respond to a global pandemic, including the allocation of some £3 billion of funding to support lives and livelihoods, puts the implementation of the inquiry's recommendations into perspective. The Audit Office makes no reference to that context in its report.

The fact that an Executive subcommittee, comprising six Ministers, met three times in that context over the course of the second half of 2020 is testimony to the seriousness with which the Executive addressed the challenges of the inquiry report. To be clear, however, under its terms of reference, the subcommittee was to meet after the publication of the inquiry report in order to produce an action plan for implementation of the recommendations flowing out of the RHI inquiry report and to agree a final report to be submitted to the Executive for publication. At its third, and last, meeting on 16 December 2020, it completed its preparation of the action plan. Its final report was agreed by the Executive in October 2021.

Of course, a body of work, which drew upon the evidence to the inquiry as it was heard, had already been initiated by my predecessor in the Department of Finance and by officials in the absence of the inquiry's completion. Opportunities for improvement were identified, and policies and processes were subject to review and revision. The programme of work was widespread and included the revision of the ministerial code, the NICS code of ethics and the code of conduct for special advisers. Those changes have been reflected in a new special adviser letter of appointment, a code of conduct for the appointment of special advisers and special adviser induction; the appointment of ministerial private secretaries at grade 7 and the issue of revised private office guidance; the initiation of work to establish a project delivery profession in the Civil Service; a review of the professional development of Civil Service economists through formal learning and managed rotation around posts; and a review of the use of the electronic records management system and records management practice in Departments.

Following the publication of the inquiry report, further work was taken forward, including the issuing of key guidance on project management; the establishment of project, programme and portfolio offices in each Department; the formalisation of SRO appointments; the introduction of the five-case business model for business cases, reflecting good practice in other Governments; the launch of a cross-departmental raising concerns policy framework to improve the handling of concerns, secure consistency of practice, shift culture towards welcoming concerns being raised and inform the NICS board about what those arrangements show us; the initiation of a strategy for the development of the policy profession in the Civil Service, including the development of new, fundamental guidance for policy teams, which has since been used as the basis for the refreshing of the learning and development offer; the revision of the guidance on the use of consultants; and the commencement of a fundamental review of Civil Service recruitment.

Eleven of the 16 recommendations assessed by the Audit Office as not yet implemented are, in many cases, substantially complete already and are only awaiting completion and verification. In respect of the remaining five, substantive change has already been achieved. The Audit Office's assessment is concerned primarily with the external verification of changes that have already taken place. I will address those recommendations now.

The inquiry recommended that Ministers should read the legislation that they bring to the Assembly and that the evidence should be made available. It is incumbent upon Ministers to familiarise themselves with the legislation that they are presenting to the Assembly for approval. The relevant evidence is published at consultation and scrutinised in the Assembly. The question is not whether the Executive intend to implement that recommendation; it is about whether we can ever put in a dedicated audit process to demonstrate that a Minister knows the legislation or the policy that they are introducing. That is part of the scrutiny function of the Assembly.

The inquiry recommended that external members be appointed to project boards. Having external expertise on project boards is explicitly recommended in the relevant guidance, "Dear Accounting Officer" letter 05/23. The substance of the recommendation has been implemented, and we know that external appointments are made. The Audit Office asked whether the Department of Finance should know whether that guidance is being implemented, separate from the role and responsibilities of the senior responsible officer and the accounting officer. We are exploring how best we might take that recommendation forward.

The inquiry recommended that commercial awareness training be rolled out to relevant staff. A significant range of training on commercial expertise has been provided internally and externally. The specific terms of the recommendation were that decisions about who should access that training should be made at a senior management level. We can potentially address that area.

The inquiry recommended that civil servants should understand and know how to use existing governance frameworks. Further work needs to be done on increasing civil servants' understanding of governance frameworks and policies, and we will seek to deliver that.

The inquiry recommended that regular audits of record-keeping should be undertaken. Significant work has taken place on record management, going beyond the recommendations of the RHI inquiry. That work includes a review of information management policies to identify and address any gaps, taking account of emerging findings from the COVID inquiry; a new mandatory records management e-learning training package being rolled out to all staff; and the reconstitution of the information governance board as the senior information risk owner (SIRO) forum.

The Audit Office report identifies one small element of just one of the recommendations on records management that it assesses as unlikely to be implemented. That is to commission internal audit to review the implementation of the new arrangements. It had always been the intention that internal audit should be commissioned to undertake a thematic review of information management, but no date had been set. Such a review will be of value only once the new arrangements have had a chance to be established and effected, so that we look not just at the implementation of the RHI inquiry recommendations but at further recommendations that have come through the COVID inquiry.

I will move on to Civil Service reform more generally. I believe that Civil Service colleagues should be given every opportunity to do the good job that they want to do, and I agree with Paul Frew that many in our Civil Service do an excellent job and should be commended for it. Making effective change in any large organisation is challenging, but effecting change in a Civil Service that is managed in multiple distinct organisations is complex and demanding. From the outset, it has been clear that changing policies and procedures will not, by itself, change the habits of individuals, but changing the culture and behaviours across the Departments can take place only with an underpinning change in the rules. Corporate policies on HR, financial governance and information management have to make it easier to do a good job, not harder. Changes in policy then have to be combined with a demonstration of leadership by those who set the tone. Ministers and senior officials have to demonstrate and uphold the values that we want our colleagues to embrace. The experience of COVID showed us how Departments can move at pace, managing risk and ensuring proportionate governance and controls. Officials can demonstrate their initiative, innovation and commitment while serving the public through the elected representatives who form the Executive Committee.

Mr O'Toole: I very much appreciate the Minister's giving way. I want to ask about the broader question of reform, including removing the veto and stopping this institution collapsing. Earlier this year, the First Minister and the former Finance Minister, Conor Murphy — the Minister's colleague — said that they were up for a conversation about reform, but they thought that it should happen in the Assembly and Executive Review Committee (AERC). That Committee has met once, briefly, and it did not discuss any detail. Would the Minister be open to that reform agenda going into the Programme for Government?

Dr Archibald: I thank the Member for his intervention. The appropriate forum is the Assembly and Executive Review Committee. As my colleagues said, we are up for considering that conversation. It is important that the institutions function as effectively as possible, and we should all be committed to delivering on that.

For the future, we should look to build positively on the experience of how Departments functioned at pace and delivered more innovative initiatives throughout COVID. RHI has taught us all that we must acknowledge our scale, collaborate and cooperate to achieve and not only uphold good practice in administration and management but understand why it matters. I have confidence in the Civil Service's commitment to its improvement and development. I am encouraged by the plans that the head of the Civil Service has been developing for effective change across Departments.

As part of that change, I will bring recommendations to the Executive on how the remaining work on the RHI inquiry recommendations is to be taken forward. That work will include a consideration of how delivery will be driven forward, overseen, monitored and recorded. I want change to be driven strategically, following a service-wide analysis of what is needed. I believe that the remaining tasks can be part of a wider agenda for change and development in the Civil Service. They can contribute to more significant and substantial projects, such as the work on Budget sustainability, the projects flowing from the transformation fund or the development of the five-year people strategy.

I note the continued interest among Members in the delivery of change in the Civil Service, Departments and the Executive, and I look forward to working together to secure improved government for the communities that we serve.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: I call Sinéad McLaughlin to conclude and make a winding-up speech on the motion. Sinéad, you have up to 10 minutes.

Ms McLaughlin: Thanks, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank all Members who contributed to the debate. Many recognised that the RHI report released last month by the Audit Office was sobering. It was a reminder of the serious failures in governance and oversight that continue to plague the administration of the RHI scheme. It highlights a lack of progress on implementing the recommendations, which were aimed at preventing a repeat of the original scandal, an inquiry into which, let us not forget, cost the taxpayer £13 million, exposed significant failings in our institutions and damaged public confidence in our devolved Administration. My colleague Matthew O'Toole made it abundantly clear that we are dealing not just with the aftermath of a failed scheme but with a failure to learn from the mistakes and to act on the lessons that were painfully laid out in front of us.

Of the 42 recommendations that came out of the inquiry, 26 have been implemented and 16 remain unaddressed, with five of those unlikely to be fulfilled in line with their original intent. The fact that the Executive subcommittee on reform has not met since 2020 is an indictment of our approach to governance. Indeed, the primary consideration of prioritising party over government is laid bare.

Nicola Brogan said that we were navigating difficult times, including a global pandemic, the absence of functioning institutions and Budget pressures, but those are not valid excuses for neglecting our duty to ensure that the scandal is never repeated. In fact, the lack of urgency and attention to reform further erodes public trust, which was already severely damaged by the original scandal. How can we expect the public to trust us when they see that, despite all that has happened, the necessary changes have not been made?

The Audit Office report also brings to light the issue of record-keeping. Diane Forsythe, Paul Frew, Timothy Gaston, Gerry Carroll and all my colleagues who spoke expressed anger and alarm at the fact that record-keeping practices have deteriorated since the most recent review in 2022, making it difficult to verify and monitor the recommendations' progress. I am afraid that the Minister's response on that aspect makes me think that I am living in a parallel universe. It was one of the core issues that led to the original scandal, and it appears that the lessons that we should have learnt remain unheeded.

Actions in recent weeks illustrate poor transparency and poor governance. Regression in that area is a clear signal that there is a systemic problem in our Civil Service. It is a problem characterised by a lack of training and transparency and by gross incompetence in the handling of such a critical matter. The people of Northern Ireland deserve better. They deserve accountability. If we are to have serious government that serves the interests of people, reform is not just an option but an absolute necessity.

David Honeyford says that Alliance is the party of reform. If so, it needs to start prioritising reform around the Executive table. The pace of progress has been far too slow, and the excuses have been worn out.

Mr Honeyford: I thank the Member for giving way. This is a debate on RHI, which is really serious, and we have had very serious contributions from the DUP, from the Ulster Unionists, from me, from Sinn Féin and from People Before Profit about this debate, yet the SDLP — the official Opposition — has chosen to attack Alliance consistently on it. You have had three rants on it, so can I ask when and how and if it is possible for the SDLP to actually scrutinise and actually be the Opposition?

Ms McLaughlin: I apologise, because you are obviously uncomfortable with the level of scrutiny that we are giving you.

We were told that the RHI scandal could never be repeated, yet here we stand, debating the very recommendations that should have been implemented by now. It is evident that, without robust mechanisms for oversight and accountability, we will continue to stumble from crisis to crisis. The Executive subcommittee on reform must be re-established immediately, with a renewed sense of purpose and urgency. We need clear, measurable outcomes for reform, and those must be embedded in the final Programme for Government to ensure that the required changes are not merely aspirational but fully actionable and tracked over time. That point was well made by my colleagues Colin McGrath and Daniel McCrossan.

We owe it to the public to demonstrate that we are capable of learning from our mistakes and committed to addressing the deficiencies identified in the Audit Office report. Reforming our institutions is not merely about responding to a past scandal; it is about ensuring that the systems that we have in place can withstand future challenges and deliver competent, transparent government. We must act decisively to restore public trust. That begins with implementing all outstanding recommendations from the RHI public inquiry without further delay. Diana Armstrong also made that point very well.

I thank the Minister for her response, but I urge the Minister of Finance to take the report seriously and accelerate her efforts to address the deficiencies identified by the Audit Office.

Mr McCrossan: I thank the Member for giving way. She makes a valid point, particularly pointing at the Minister of Finance, given that it was the Minister's party that was so appalled by RHI — they shared our frustration with what was happening — that it collapsed the institutions. Does the Member agree that it is shocking that these failings are happening on her watch?

Ms McLaughlin: I agree, and I hope that the Minister has heard the frustration across the House today.

In conclusion, I ask all Members to support the motion, because it is time for us to acknowledge the depth of the failures and to act upon them with the urgency and seriousness that they demand. Let us not wait for another crisis to force our hand. Let us take the necessary steps now to protect the public interest and restore the faith in our institutions, which has been severely damaged even in the past couple of weeks. It is only through decisive action that we can show the people of Northern Ireland that their Government are, indeed, committed to learning from the past and delivering for the future.

Madam Principal Deputy Speaker: As you were advised earlier, the Speaker has been notified that the proposer of the Adjournment topic will not be proceeding with it today.