Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 22 June 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5638994
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for giving way. It is not about accessibility. The wider enabling access to justice programme that was laid with the Committee a number of months ago deals with wider issues around accessibility. For example, I talked about changing the financial threshold, because, as you know, there is an upper limit. I believe that that upper limit is now too low and excludes a lot of people who could not afford to take legal action themselves. We talked about that being the wide end of the funnel and then looking, at the other end, at what the public benefit and public good is from serving. That is because cases are also taken under legal aid that serve no particular public good, and we need to look at how we prevent that from happening.
It is not, therefore, about access but about ensuring that the money that we have — we are spending more money on legal aid this year than we ever have before, so it is not about cuts to legal aid — is transparent and fully accounted for, and that we can have confidence that people are being paid for a job well done and that the work that they put in and the remuneration that they get match. I do not think that that is unreasonable. I think that most people, in any line of employment, would expect as much. Certainly, when I was working in my professional capacity as an engineer, I was expected to keep time sheets. It is not unusual for people to have to record the work that they do and to be rewarded for its complexity as well as the time that is spent. All of that is in there. By agreeing to the new clause, the Committee would be given the opportunity to scrutinise all of that. At the minute, you cannot, because that decision is taken elsewhere and is beyond our control.
325 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.95).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.95 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.98 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.01 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
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