Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
Debate contribution by Mr John Stewart on .
- MLA
- Mr John Stewart
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 7 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5670764
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker: I was not expecting to get in so quickly. First, I welcome the Member for Upper Bann as the new Chairman of the Committee for Infrastructure: I look forward to working with him on the Bill as it goes through the scrutiny process and on the many other issues that we have to look at. As the infrastructure spokesperson for the Ulster Unionist Party, I welcome the opportunity to comment on the Second Stage of the Display of Flags and Emblems Bill. I begin by acknowledging the intention behind the legislation. There is a genuine problem — throughout the debate, we have all agreed on that — that, across Northern Ireland, there are areas in communities where flags and emblems are not simply an expression of cultural identity but are used to intimidate, to mark territory, to glorify proscribed organisations or to demonstrate who exercises control in that area. The Ulster Unionist Party has been clear: paramilitary flags have no legitimate place in our communities and should not be defended under any guise of culture or tradition. We have been consistent in that approach, and we believe that there is no place for hate, intimidation or violence and that any emblem or anything else that displays any of those things should be dealt with by the PSNI. I have considerable sympathy with the Member about the problem that she seeks to address. Where we part company is on whether the Bill truly provides a workable solution. If the Bill ends up in Committee, as, by the sound of it, it will, we will play a fruitful role, as always, and try to be as constructive as possible. Legislation must be judged not simply by the worthiness of its objective but by whether it can operate fairly, consistently and safely in the real world. Before we create an entirely new statutory regime, we should ask the basic question: are we dealing principally with a gap in the law, or are we dealing with a failure to use and enforce powers that already exist? That point has been made before, because this is not a blank legislative canvas. DFI already has a responsibility for unauthorised material attached to its infrastructure. The Department has stated that article 87 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 makes it an offence to attach unauthorised signs or advertisements to structures such as lamp posts. DFI already has an operational approach to flags and other unauthorised attachments, including road safety considerations and the safety of staff and contractors, and that point has already been made. More significantly, there has been a recent change to the terrorism legislation that is directly relevant to some of the most serious displays that we have discussed today. Section 233 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 strengthens section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The expanded powers enable police to seize an article such as a flag or banner where it is suspected to be evidence of an offence relating to support for a proscribed organisation, and we know that there is confusion about whether the PSNI is fully utilising the legislation. It walks on eggshells around this, but there is merit in looking at that law, which applies across the United Kingdom. Indeed, the rationale for change specifically referred to concerns about articles relating to proscribed organisations, including flags left on lamp posts in Northern Ireland, and that is highly relevant to this debate. If terrorist and paramilitary flags are one of the central evils that we are trying to confront, surely we must first ask how those newly strengthened powers are being used and whether everything that is currently in place is being used to its full potential. I fully accept that those powers do not cover every flag or emblem that is addressed in the Bill, but this Bill deliberately goes much wider. However, that in itself brings us to one of the central difficulties. Clause 1(2) states that removal is required where:
"(a) the flag or emblem is intimidatory or threatening, ... is likely to stir up hatred, or arouse fear, ... or ... invites support for, or is the flag or emblem of, a proscribed organisation."
I have considerable sympathy for decisive actions in those circumstances because they are precisely the types of displays that our enforcement areas should focus on. However, clause 1(3) takes us into much more subjective territory, and that is the issue. It creates a presumption in favour of removal where a display is considered to be:
"offensive, abusive, or insulting",
and around sensitive places where it:
"(i) is antagonistic, or not conducive to good community relations, or (ii) demarcates that place as belonging exclusively to persons with a particular national or cultural identity".
Clause 1(4) then states that the Department must consider factors including local views, the length of time that the flag has been displayed, whether it is connected to a celebration or commemoration and whether it is being displayed in a disrespectful manner. Clause 1(5) then requires the Department to consider:
"all the circumstances in their context, including the ... impact or effect that the display of the flag or emblem would have upon a reasonable person."
Those are exceptionally difficult judgements. They are not infrastructure judgements; they involve culture, politics, equality and human rights, and community relations and the potential for public disorder. Who in the Department for Infrastructure will make those decisions? I sense that there is probably nobody in place to do so. What expertise will those officials have? What evidential threshold will apply? My colleague for North Antrim made that point previously. How will consistency be ensured across Northern Ireland? That is probably the biggest issue that we will see in the outworkings of the Bill. What happens when one section of the community believes that an official has been too lenient, while another believes that exactly the same decision demonstrates political or cultural bias? I fear that, far from depoliticising the issue of flags, the legislation could place civil servants directly at the centre of what is one of the most politically and culturally sensitive issues in Northern Ireland. That leads to a more fundamental question, which the Chair of the Committee has already raised: why the Department for Infrastructure? As we know, the Department for Infrastructure is already under significant financial and operational pressure in trying to meet all the expectations placed on it in its primary areas of responsibility. Every Member of the House regularly deals with constituents who are frustrated by potholes that need to be repaired, street lights that remain out, roads that require resurfacing, gullies that remain blocked, drainage issues, overgrown verges and the pressures on our water system — the list is endless. Those are not peripheral responsibilities; they are the bread-and-butter responsibilities of the Department for Infrastructure. DFI has repeatedly had to prioritise its resources amid the difficult financial pressures that it currently faces. We must ask ourselves whether it is really the Department to which we can give an entirely new and highly sensitive statutory regulatory function. The proposer of the Bill said that it was not her intention for the legislation to create another Parades Commission. I take the point, and I am sympathetic to that, but the more that we hear about the outworkings of the Bill, the more it sounds remarkably as though its bureaucratic nature could create a flags commission in the Department for Infrastructure. I do not think that anybody wants to see that. Under the Bill, DFI will potentially have to receive and assess reports about flags, consider their cultural and political context, assess local opinion, make judgements about community relations, administer a notification and reporting process, develop and regularly review a code of practice, arrange physical removal, manage contractors and, in potentially contentious situations, coordinate with the PSNI. That requires staff, policy expertise, legal advice, administrative support, contractors, enforcement arrangements, and, most importantly, it will require money, which, as we all know, the Department for Infrastructure does not currently have. The Assembly has to ask a core question: if DFI is already struggling to meet the basic public expectations around potholes, street lighting, drainage, road maintenance and grass cutting, is it really sensible to create an entire new division on flags enforcement in that Department? Unless significant additional funding accompanies those responsibilities, what existing DFI services will receive less resource as a consequence? That is not a criticism of officials in DFI. It is a question of priorities and capacity and whether it is the appropriate institutional home for the policy. There is another issue with the breadth of the scheme. Under clause 2, a sense of place can include schools and medical facilities. It can also include leisure centres; libraries; shopping centres; arterial roads; public parks; interface areas; new housing developments; and places of worship. I understand entirely why sensitivity is required around many of those locations, but the wider the categories become, the greater the number of difficult and contested decisions we are asking officials in DFI to make. Colleagues have made that point already. It could become almost insurmountable for many civil servants trying to make those decisions. I also want to make one brief point about the Union flag. The Union flag is our national flag, and its lawful and respectful display is plainly not equivalent to the flag of a proscribed terrorist organisation. There is no false equivalence between the two, nor should there ever be. At the same time, defending our national flag does not require us to defend every manner in which it is displayed. When I see Union flags in tatters, torn and devastated after months, I hate it. It is not respectful, and it is not what I want to see. Indeed, clause 1(4) specifically asks the Department to consider whether a flag is displayed in a disrespectful manner. I understand the sentiment behind the proposer including that provision, but I am not convinced that the answer is to place an official in DFI in the position of making a statutory judgement on when an individual Union flag has become sufficiently faded or is displayed in a sufficiently disrespectful manner to justify removal by the state. I do not think that that is the answer to dealing with the issue. I would much rather see, as we have heard before and happens already in many places, strong local protocols governing when flags go up, how they are maintained, when they come down and when responsible community leadership takes ownership of those arrangements. We have seen many examples across the country of that happening. On clause 3, the Department must establish a procedure, potentially through an online portal, through which a person may notify DFI that they have displayed or wish to display a flag and give their reasons and views. Members of the public may also report displays and give their views through the portal. The explanatory material makes it clear that the notification element is voluntary. The proposer has already agreed with that, but we need to consider very carefully who is most likely to engage in that system. A responsible community organisation planning a display for a jubilee commemoration, for example, or a sporting celebration may well engage with it. However, those who erect a flag anonymously, perhaps in the hours of darkness, with the purpose of marking out territory or intimidating a community are less likely to log on to the DFI portal and tell the Department what they are doing. Therefore, I fear, and I am happy to give way on this, that there is a real danger that we would create a system that regulates most heavily those willing to comply and that the compliant engage with —.
Yes, absolutely.
1,970 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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