Debate contribution: Education Inspections Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Peter Martin on 1 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Peter Martin

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

1 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Education Inspections Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5581882

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Pat. I understand it. I am not sure that people out there in the real world will completely follow what has gone on in your party. The Members opposite have said that they have got teachers' backs, "You guys are safe with us", and so forth. What I think has happened today is that, over the weekend, you thought that you were going to be outmanoeuvred by the SDLP, which was going to oppose the Bill anyway, and you suddenly thought that you had better change things. That is just my view. I want to get on to the Bill. I genuinely want to talk about children. There has also been some chat about whether there have been inspections during action short of strike. I want to clarify that, because some Members, including, I think, the Chair of the Education Committee said quite a while ago that, during action short of strike, the safeguarding inspections somehow occurred or went on or proceeded as normal. My understanding is that that is not what happened. My understanding is that, during action short of strike, inspectors were not allowed to meet designated teachers or safeguarding teams if they were following union advice and action. That is really important. I admit that some schools allowed that to occur, but that was against the advice of their union. If we are in a situation where — I think that this is where some Members are — we are kind of hoping that safeguarding happens. We are kind of hoping that there is some auditing of child protection measures in our schools. We are kind of crossing our fingers and saying, "Well, I kind of hope that it is going to happen, but we are not going to make it happen. We just hope that it will happen."

That is a very sad state of affairs if that is how the Assembly views safeguarding and child protection. Should inspections be mandatory to make sure that standards are upheld and safeguarding procedures are underpinned? From listening to the debate, I can tell that everybody loves inspections. Members have stood up and said, "We support inspections. We think that inspections are great". I have not heard a single Member stand up and say, "I think that inspections are a bad idea". Parents will be listening to what we are saying, and parents want schools to improve. I will be the first person in Northern Ireland to say that we have amazing schools. People have gone to other places in the world and have come back to Northern Ireland because our school system is so great. Parents, however, want it not just to be great but to be better. They want it to improve. I am sure that the Minister will touch on that in his closing remarks. As I said, I will limit my commentary to clause 3, which contains the safeguarding aspect. Mr Burrows referenced his experience at Bangor Grammar School. For transparency, I say that I also attended Bangor Grammar School, and I knew Dr Lindsay Brown. Mr Burrows referenced historical charges, which happened a long time ago. Certainly, for me, it was a long time ago. I am not sure what child protection measures were in place at that time or what safeguarding was like in Bangor Grammar School. I should say that it is now an amazing school, and my eldest son attends it. We are talking about quite a few decades ago. However, Mr Burrows referenced it. We are talking about safeguarding and inspection. Essentially, we are talking about whether the inspection of safeguarding procedures and child protection procedures should happen in our schools. No ifs, no buts: should that inspection happen? Last year, a guy called Neil Beckett was convicted of sexual assault and sexual grooming after he targeted nine schoolgirls and used his position as a welfare officer at a school in Belfast. His female victims said that the school did not do enough to prevent the abuse that that person inflicted. We do not know what impact action short of strike or strike action had on the ability of ETI to go into that school and audit its child protection measures, because — do you know what? — it did not happen. For the past number of years, as has been documented, that has not been occurring. We know, however, what the Northern Ireland Audit Office has said about those things. There has been significant political debate in the Chamber today. I remind Members that the Northern Ireland Audit Office is an arm's-length body, and it is not political. It does a brilliant job of looking at specific aspects of governance in Northern Ireland and drawing conclusions on those. I read this out to the Member for Lagan Valley, but it is worth reading it out again and picking up on a few more paragraphs when we are talking about clause 3. It says:

"ETI is the only organisation in Northern Ireland that inspects the arrangements for child protection and wider safeguarding in schools and educational establishments".

What I did not read out to the Member for Lagan Valley was this next part of the report, which said that ETI was:

"unable to assure parents/carers, the wider school community and stakeholders of the quality of education being provided for the pupils [and] unable to evaluate fully the outworking of the arrangements for safeguarding in"

schools. Some of you may be only pseudo listening, so I will explain it. ETI could not give assurances to parents that proper safeguarding and child protection procedures were in place in schools. Why was that? It was because it could not inspect them. Why was that? It was because they were either on action short of strike or on strike action. The best that it could do — this is not debatable; it is factual — was to go in and look at paper procedures. If inspectors wanted to talk to teachers who were on action short of strike, the unions told the teachers not to engage. That is wrong. Teachers have nothing to fear. Inspection is not punitive. It is not going after teachers. The Members on the opposite side of the House used the term "criminalisation", but, frankly, teachers are not being criminalised. That is not what we are looking at today. Use the term as much as you want, but it is not factual at all.

I will give way to the Member.

I will give the Member the Floor again. I am not sure what her question was. Apologies, Michelle.

I am happy to take that point and agree with it. They did not, but they were being asked to assess the quality of teaching and procedures. They do not give political advice or policy advice; they give recommendations. The Minister referenced something that is straight out of the Northern Ireland Audit Office document, which states:

"ETI identified 37 schools where child protection was unsatisfactory in the three years prior to ASoS. In the five years from 2020 to May 2025, eight schools were identified. There is an increased risk that schools in need of support to strengthen their child protection and safeguarding arrangements were not identified by ETI."

We have not talked about SEN. Forgive me: some Members may have touched on it but not in any detail. I have had some correspondence on the issue, and it is worth bringing it into the debate because it applies in the same way when it comes to inspection and assuring quality in our schools, which is exactly what the Bill seeks to do. The Audit Office report states:

"Inspection is one important element in assuring the quality of education for children with Special Education Needs."

The report goes on to quote the TransformED strategy:

"In the absence of inspection, we have no external assurance that our children and young people are receiving a satisfactory standard of teaching and learning. This impacts on all learners but inevitably impacts most on vulnerable and disadvantaged children."

In essence, clause 3 states that we believe that safeguarding and child protection are mission-critical in our schools and that the only way to ensure that they happen — I am happy to give the Floor to another Member if they have a better idea — is to make sure that ETI comes in and says, "We want to do an inspection, and that will include your safeguarding and child protection policies. We want to talk to your teachers and any students who are willing to talk to us. We want to make those procedures better".

I will.

1,442 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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