Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Jon Burrows on 23 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Jon Burrows

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

23 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5637388

Read the official Assembly record

Text

At its heart, this is a simple premise. First, I commend Mr Frew for tabling amendment No 96, which we will support: it is a good amendment. Amendment No 97 is a classic example of when we should be dealing with facts. There should be no place for feelings when we are dealing with legislation. We should treat trans people with compassion. You will never hear me use inflammatory language or insult trans people because they should be treated with dignity and respect. However, we are legislating to make sure that our prison estate is safe. There is a fundamental fact that some people do not want to accept, and they gaslight women when they fail to accept it. The vast majority of violent and sexual crime is committed by biological men. That is the case the world over. Disproportionately, the victims of violent and sexual crimes are biological women. As a straightforward matter of fact, and whilst there are some caveats to this, generally speaking, a man is physically stronger than a woman. They do not participate in sports together, because men have a larger physical size. They also have more of a propensity to commit violent crime. In our prisons, we have people who, by their very nature because they are in prison, have shown a propensity to commit crime and to inflict violence or sexual crimes on others.

I will give way to the Justice Minister.

I did not say that.

Absolutely. We will review Hansard at the end of the day, and I will send a copy to the Justice Minister.

I am not sure that we are having interjections from the Floor, but I will not interfere with the Deputy Speaker's role. I repeat for absolute clarity: the people in prison, by definition — it may not fit the woolly liberal world that some people want to live in — have a propensity to commit crime. That is why they are in prison. They have generally reached a threshold at which alternatives to prison have not worked. Many of them are in prison for violent and sexual crime, and I repeat what I said before: the overwhelming number of violent and sexual criminals in any society anywhere in the world are men. That is a stain on our character and not something that we should be proud of. About 90% of all crimes are committed by men — certainly violent and sexual crimes. Men have physical capabilities that, person for person, are greater than women's. They are larger and stronger than women in general. Women in prison are particularly vulnerable. They are in a confined space. They are somewhere where the state should keep them safe, and it is a well-established premise that that is the reason why we have males and females in different prisons. I see one of the Alliance Members shaking his head. Right across the United Kingdom and the Western World, men and women are kept in different prisons. The issue has come into sharp relief because of trans issues. That is why we have had a very useful Supreme Court judgement, which people seem to want to dismiss. Let us be very clear on this: if someone who is trans is a biological man and is put in a women's prison, they are stronger than most women, they have a propensity to commit crimes and there are vulnerable women upon which those crimes can be inflicted. We are merely saying that we are going to airbrush out the fact that they are a biological man because the person identifies as a woman. We had the shocking case in Scotland where a man was convicted of rape, identified as a woman and was going to go to a female prison. This Executive and this Assembly believe in tackling violence against women and girls, yet we would permit a man to be in a prison with women because the man identifies —.

I will not give way any more, because I have been misquoted. A man has been identifying himself as a female. That is preposterous. Let us look at the logical conclusion and the Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court was clear that, yes, trans people have rights, including an article 8 right to freedom of private life and privacy and all kinds of other rights, but that that right does not trump the rights, in primary law, to allow men and women to be segregated safely, because safety is the primary duty of the state. It is a qualified right. On that side of the House, stretching from Alliance through to Sinn Féin, we have a kind of alliance that is now defying the Supreme Court and seems to refuse to allow a woman to go into a prison —.

People are entitled to make points of order and interventions. Last week, I was accused of using a prop simply because I had a speech in my hand. I will get back to the main facts. The Supreme Court was clear in that seminal case that, under the Equality Act, the definition of a man was a biological man, and the definition of a woman was a biological woman. When you look at the purpose of that case, you see that, surely, it applies logically when we are deciding which prison people should go into. I say this to the legislators in the Chamber who seem to resist supporting an amendment that, anywhere else in the United Kingdom, would have majority support: they are doing so not because of facts but, I suspect, because the proposer of the amendment is Mr Gaston or because they themselves are in a culture war. It is not me who is in a culture war or who wants to run down trans people. If a trans person is attacked or discriminated against, the perpetrator should be held to account. That does not mean, however, that feelings trump facts or that ideological zeal gets in the way of safety in our prison estate. It is, as it has been for a very long time, a case of men and women being kept separately. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, you can, if required, put two prisoners in the same police cell, but you never put a man and a woman together because there is a risk of physical or sexual assault. We are saying in this place that we will leave that to the individual policy decision of someone in the Prison Service. We will literally entrust to them the application of a fundamental piece of law. This is not an operational detail but a fundamental reality: men should not be in prison with women. People are ideologically captured on the opposite side of the House and cannot move on as the rest of the world has. Yes, a trans person has the right to say, "I want to identify as a woman". In sport, they have the right to say, "I wish to identify as a woman", but that does not mean that you let a biological man play rugby against women, because that would do physical damage to the women. It does not mean that you allow a biological man, even though they call themselves a woman, to take part in a long jump contest against a woman. Why?

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will move on very swiftly because I always respect the role of the Chair. The point that I am making is that there are practical differences that people practically realise, because there is a difference between men and women. It is in every single cell in our bodies. We had the same issue in last week's debate on the minimum age of criminal responsibility, where, unfortunately, the idea that we are positioned in some progressive spectrum was causing people to defy common sense and endanger women once again. I plead with the legislators in the Chamber to change their minds and simply say that, in Northern Ireland, we will not allow a biologically intact male into our female prisons.

I will give way in one second. To do so would violate the right to safety of every woman in our prisons, many of whom are vulnerable. You have a moment of truth: if there is a crisis or a grave attack on a woman, the responsibility will lie with those who have not done the right thing here tonight. We should not need to wait for updated advice on what the Supreme Court really meant: it is the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, some of the equality bodies in this country have been captured by an ideology, and we need to ensure that we do not get captured too. In conclusion, I commend Mr Gaston for tabling his amendment. I do so without using any inflammatory or discriminatory language against trans people, who should have dignity and respect.

For centuries, men and women have been segregated in different prison establishments and in different cells in a police station. That is for good reason: women are especially vulnerable to violent attack and, indeed, to sexual assault. It would be a dereliction of duty by everybody in the Chamber if we were to allow a biological man into a prison estate with biological women because Members think that it is the progressive thing to do. It is not progressive for the victims of any future offence. It is not progressive for the women who would be endangered. I plead with Members: abandon the ideological zeal; return to common sense. Let us reorientate ourselves in the real world that everyone else has moved on to and now occupies. We give trans people respect, but we do not allow that to trump safety in our prisons. I commend the amendment. My party will support it.

1,645 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Flagged Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues

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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.

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