Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mr David Brooks on 27 October 2022.

MLA

Mr David Brooks

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

27 October 2022

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4178341

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I understand that this is not considered to be a maiden speech, in accordance with convention, but it is, nevertheless, an honour to stand for the first time in the Chamber and speak as one of the DUP Members for East Belfast. When I stood on the doorsteps in April and May, I spent a considerable amount of time talking to constituents about the matters that mattered most to them and their families. No one in this place is naive or ambivalent about the pressures that are being faced by families. In our offices, all of us work day and daily with constituents who need help and assistance and do what we can to help them. For the past six months, the DUP ensured that Ministers remained in place, money continued to be drawn down by Departments and vital support was provided through the UK Government's cost-of-living package. There needs to be some honesty in this place and some realism. While not without its merits, this place is no substitute for the kind of support that can be provided through the financial firepower of our national Government at Westminster. In the months since the election, there has been a dishonesty in the public discourse, which has emanated from some parties. They have actively cultivated and promoted, for cynical political purposes, a myth that there are hundreds of millions of pounds just sitting on the hill waiting to be handed out by a new Executive.

We all know now that, despite the Sinn Féin Finance Minister's giving the impression that his coffers are bountiful with cash that he cannot wait to give away, if only the DUP would let him, the Executive are hugely over budget. Sinn Féin and a number of other parties in the Chamber have, regrettably, played cheap politics with the cost-of-living crisis, raising false hopes and expectations.

No, thank you. Our party wants to see the institutions restored in full. We have operated them for 15 years, and our commitment to devolution is not in question. It is viable, however, only with the confidence of both communities, not just one. It remains the situation that not one unionist in this place supports the protocol, just as it was before the last election: not one. Those I talked to on the doorsteps were clear about my party's stance on the protocol when they went to the polls. They knew that Jeffrey Donaldson had been as reasonable as possible and had given all the time and space that he could to allow the Government to negotiate a solution or bring forward their own action to restore fully Northern Ireland's place in the UK internal market. Since that time, on the ground, I have heard no message more loudly from the unionist community in East Belfast than simply this: stand your ground. They understand not only that the protocol costs Northern Ireland hundreds of millions of pounds each year, or that grace periods mask the full scale of the harm that the protocol brings with it. In my experience, people across the unionist spectrum have had enough of the foundational tenets of the Good Friday Agreement, which many here are happy to extol when it is convenient for them, being considered sacred when they provide political advantage or protection to nationalism, but then being discarded when they become inconvenient or provide similar safeguards to unionism. Unionists want the pitch to be levelled. They want fairness to be restored. The double standards and the attitude of "safeguards for me, but not for thee" corrode trust in our institutions. Earlier this week, we watched as the SDLP emphasised the need for Assembly consent in order to block the provisions of the protocol Bill, while also wanting to override and bin the need for Irish language standards to be approved jointly by the First Minister and deputy First Minister. The hypocrisy of those contrasting positions is obvious and, shamefully, all too regular. Nobody in the Chamber believes that this charade debate will change anything. Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party are staging this stunt as a kick-start to their campaigns in a snap election. Their grandstanding here will change nothing. To those who continue to dismiss unionists' grave concerns on the protocol and demand business as usual, I simply and genuinely say this: you gravely underestimate the resilience and determination of unionists of many hues on this issue, and your unwillingness to hear them corrodes confidence in our political system and institutions. Power-sharing requires the confidence of both communities. I was elected on a mandate to seek tangible action on the protocol and restore our place in the UK internal market. I have sought to honour that mandate and the commitments that I have made to my electors. Just as the Secretary of State says that he is bound by legislation and will do what is required of him, I am bound by commitments that I gave to those who gave me my mandate, and I will continue to do what is required of me.

842 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not qualifying

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The speech is a defence of a party's stance on the protocol and the restoration of power-sharing, made during a Speaker election. It frames the issue partly in communal terms, saying devolution works "only with the confidence of both communities" and that "unionists want the pitch to be levelled", and it points to "safeguards for me, but not for thee". However, it engages with substantive constitutional and economic questions: the protocol's cost, the UK internal market, Executive budget pressures and how cross-community consent rules apply. The rubric treats arguments about consent and designation rules as legitimate unless they are put in loaded language. It does not portray any community or its culture as hostile, illegitimate or a threat, and its criticism of other parties targets their positions and alleged hypocrisy, not bigotry.

Public interest or divisiveness

Much of the speech is ordinary partisan argument on a major constitutional dispute: explaining a mandate, contesting claims about available money, and setting out conditions for restoring the institutions. It also carries a strong sense of communal grievance, presenting unionists as treated unfairly compared with nationalism, and dismissing the sitting as a "charade debate" and a "stunt". The brief jab about Irish language standards is used as a hypocrisy point and not as an attack on the language itself. Both the substantive and the grievance elements are significant, so the balance is mixed.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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