Debate contribution: Display of Flags and Emblems Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr John Stewart on 7 September 2026.

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 5670786

Text

I thank the Member for his intervention. Again, he makes valid points. It is about the weight that is given to applications when they come in. Will the application from someone who complains about a display from 15 miles away be given as much weight as the application from someone who complains from 15 metres away? How is that weighed up? How do the people who are trying to make those decisions objectively take that on board? Clearly, all of that needs to be up for discussion. As I said, it raises the question of how much substantive additional value that bureaucracy will provide. There are similar questions about the reporting side of clause 3. As we know, flags are already some of the most contested cultural and political issues in Northern Ireland. What happens when the Department receives hundreds of reports or representations about a particular display? How does it distinguish genuine local concern from a coordinated campaign designed to influence the process? What weight should be attached to the views of somebody who lives beside a display compared with the views of somebody from elsewhere? Again, those are intensely subjective judgements that somebody from DFI will have to make. Then we come to clause 4, which requires the Department to develop, consult on, publish and regularly review a statutory code of practice. That involves consultation with a substantive range of organisations and requires continuing political expertise, legal advice, administration and oversight. All of that brings us back to the issue of resource. The greatest practical difficulty with the Bill arises when we reach clauses 5 and 6. Clause 5 creates the offence of obstructing DFI or somebody acting on its behalf when carrying out removal, with clause 6 then allowing the Department to request PSNI assistance where it believes that removing a flag may result in a breach of the peace or an obstruction. Putting those provisions into legislation does not remove the practical reality that somebody has to go up and take the flag down. If a display is associated with a proscribed organisation, DFI may be asking an employee or contractor to enter an area and remove a symbol erected by precisely the people who are capable of intimidating them. Questions arise from that. Will contractors be willing to undertake the work? What protections will be in place for them? Will specialist contractors have to be procured? How frequently will police assistance be required? What happens if the operational assessment is that removal at that particular time could risk serious disorder or put staff at risk? We know that those are not hypothetical situations. We have heard from the Committee Chair of the cost of policing the Union flag situation in Birmingham. The cost here could be absolutely astronomical. DFI's existing approach to unauthorised flags and attachments already specifically recognises the safety of its staff and contractors as a paramount consideration. There is a tension at the heart of the legislation: clause 1 creates a duty to remove while clause 6 recognises that carrying out the duty may create a public order problem that might not be solvable. That creates the potential for a perverse outcome. The easiest flags to remove will be those in the peaceful communities where no one threatens or obstructs the contractors, and the hardest flags to remove may be those associated with terrorist or paramilitary organisations, backed by people who are willing to intimidate, obstruct and threaten disorder. If relatively innocuous displays are removed because it is safe to remove them and intimidating displays are left up because contractors are unable to go into those areas, the compliant are penalised while the intimidators gain an effective veto. That is not an argument for leaving paramilitary flags in place — quite the opposite; it is an argument for ensuring that our enforcement arrangements are designed around those that cause the greatest harm. Those powers currently exist. It is precisely why the recent strengthening of police powers matters and why I believe that we could get a political protocol and agreement in this place to put further powers and resources into the hands of the police to deal with the issues.
If the issue is a flag or banner providing evidence of an offence involving support for a proscribed organisation and the police now have an expanded statutory power to seize such material even when no individual can be connected to it, surely the first priority must be to understand how that power is working in practice and ensure that it is being used and resourced effectively. Clause 7 defines "public street furniture" very broadly. It includes:
"lampposts, bus shelters, trees, rubbish and recycling bins, street signs, bollards, railings and fences."
That speaks to one of the key problems that we have already discussed today and one on which I am keen to get answers from the Bill sponsor. It raises questions about ownership and jurisdiction. The explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) states that DFI is "typically the relevant landowner" where such issues arise, but "typically" does not mean "exclusively". We know that trees are not in the sole ownership of DFI. We know that public buildings, railings and bins are not in the sole ownership of DFI. Some public street furniture may belong to councils or other public bodies, so how will that relationship work? Who will arrange access? Who will take responsibility for a removed flag or emblem? How will disputes about responsibility be resolved? Those may initially appear to be technical matters, but they concern the basic operation of the legislation. I appreciate that the Member may respond by pointing to the shortcomings of previous voluntary arrangements and protocols, and there have been many. I accept that criticism. There has been a frustration over many years over the failure to deal effectively with inappropriate flag displays, but the failure of a voluntary protocol does not automatically prove that this statutory model is the correct answer. If previous arrangements failed because there was no clear ownership, insufficient resources and inadequate enforcement, those are the deficiencies that we should address and not in new legislation. There is a stronger case to be made for a properly resourced and coordinated inter-agency approach involving the PSNI, DFI, councils and relevant community partners with clearly defined operational responsibilities and with the recently strengthened terrorism legislation properly utilised where material relating to proscribed organisations is involved. Our priorities should be clear: terrorist flags, genuine intimidation and coercive territorial marking are what finite public resources should be focused on. I know that those areas will be addressed at Committee Stage, as that is where the scrutiny process begins. There is, however, a distinction to be made between amending and improving a Bill and fundamentally reconstructing it. To make the Bill workable, we need clear definitions; new appropriate review and appeal mechanisms; robust and transparent evidential standards; clarity around jurisdiction and ownership; more detailed enforcement procedures and protections for staff and contractors; clarity around how the Bill interacts with existing PSNI and terrorism powers; and a realistic funding model. Ultimately, we may need to consider whether DFI should be the lead authority at all. Those matters are not peripheral amendments around the edges of the legislation; they go to the foundations of the Bill. I and my party want to see the removal of all paramilitary flags from our streets, and I want to see an end to the use of flags for intimidation and territorial control. I want communities to be free from the shadow of such organisations and the symbols that are used to demonstrate coercive control, and I want to see our national flag displayed properly and treated with the dignity that it deserves. Those objectives are not contradictory, but good intentions do not automatically produce good law. The question before us is not whether a problem exists, because it clearly does; the question is whether the Bill provides the right solution. Clause 1 asks DFI to make exceptionally sensitive cultural and political judgements that it is not currently designed to make. Clause 3 risks creating a system with which responsible and law-abiding people will engage, with those intent on intimidation simply ignoring it. Clauses 5 and 6 do not overcome the fundamental safety and public order difficulties involved in physical removal, while clause 7 raises further questions about the breadth of the regime, ownership and responsibility. All of that is being placed on a Department that is already under significant pressure to meet public expectations on its basic statutory responsibilities. Most important, when it comes to the flags of proscribed organisations, the Assembly should ask itself why we need to create substantial new bureaucracy before properly testing, resourcing and using the newly strengthened police powers that have been specifically put in place to address the problems that we are discussing. For those reasons, the Ulster Unionist Party will not support the Bill at Second Stage.

1,491 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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