Debate contribution: Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 17 January 2024.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

17 January 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Election of Speaker and Deputy Speakers

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4177553

Read the official Assembly record

Text

At the outset, I formally extend my condolences to DUP colleagues and to David Hilditch's family on his tragic passing last year. It is with a heavy heart that my colleagues and I signed the recall motion and have come to the Chamber for the sitting of the Assembly today. We had hoped that, even overnight, wise counsel might prevail and we would come here with a genuine prospect of electing a Speaker and conducting the other business on today's Order Paper to restore an Executive. Sadly, despite the increasingly acute pressures facing our public services and finances and the impact that those pressures are having on those whom we were elected to serve, that will not be the case. After almost two years without an Executive, over 18 months without an Assembly and 13 months since we last had locally elected and democratically accountable Ministers in office, my party's frustration with the continued denial of basic democracy is profound. However, our frustration is nothing when compared with the frustration or, perhaps more accurately, anger and despair that so many of our constituents feel at this point. Despite the urgency of the crisis facing Northern Ireland, we stand here today in institutions that not only are frozen and suspended in animation but have, for five of the past seven years, been similarly unable to deliver anything whatsoever for the people who elected us. While the focus today is rightly on the DUP's boycott, I say this to other party leaders: there is no point coming to the Chamber bemoaning the bind in which we find ourselves time and time again while defending and refusing to address the structural weaknesses that enable it. The only conceivable reason that any party would want to retain the power to collapse the institutions is if it intends to use it or the threat of it to subvert normal democratic process. I want the institutions restored as soon as possible, but, more than that, I want them reformed so that no single party can ever again hold them to ransom and hold the best interests of the public and the future of our people to ransom with them, because it is those who live in our community who suffer as a result of the repeated collapses.

Our inability to sustain government has impeded public-sector reform. The now First Minister designate made a statement to the Assembly as Health Minister that she intended to implement Bengoa reforms back in October 2016. However, by January 2017, the institutions were collapsed. The problems in our health service have been allowed to fester and the crisis deepen to the position that we find ourselves in today, with a demoralised and underpaid health service workforce and some of the longest waiting lists in Europe. That is merely one example; in fact, there is barely a part of our public sector that is not currently straining under a combination of high demand, inadequate resources and the need for modernisation and reform. The fact that Northern Ireland is underfunded in relation to need when compared with England, Wales and Scotland is now a matter of public record. While I hold Treasury and the Northern Ireland Office fully accountable for their willingness not only to allow that situation to continue but to misrepresent the position actively in suggesting that Northern Ireland is overfunded and merely makes bad choices, the fact remains that, while the Welsh Government were negotiating a fiscal floor and framework with Treasury from a position of strength, our focus was deflected on to restoration efforts and political matters. For once, as an Executive, we could be arguing collectively on the same side of the table for the people who elected us, but, instead, we are locked out of those opportunities. Tomorrow, public-sector workers, many of whom provided front-line services throughout the pandemic and have worked hard to support recovery and who are exhausted and demoralised, are yet again having to strike on the largest day of industrial action in a generation for their basic right to proper pay and conditions. I am not claiming that the restoration of an Executive would resolve all the public pay pressures or the wider financial and structural challenges facing our public services. However, we would be £3·3 billion closer to a resolution of some of those issues than we are now and than the Civil Service would be if restoration does not happen. We would have some additional resource to resolve pay. We would have some additional resource to tackle waiting lists. We would also, crucially, have a collective position from which to negotiate with Treasury a more sustainable framework for our finances when that £3·3 billion runs out in two years' time as an Executive, rather than as disparate political voices. That is why I have written to other party leaders to seek engagement now on plans for how we would prioritise those issues in any future Executive so that we can hit the ground running if and when restoration happens. Alliance has raised with the Secretary of State and Prime Minister the need to resolve public-sector pay irrespective of whether the Assembly and Executive are formed. It is as wrong for the Conservative Government to use our public-sector workers as leverage in this political dispute as it is for any party to abuse the institutions in that manner. Realistically, however, the only certain and the quick —.

I will.

I completely agree, and, in fact —.

Thank you. In fact, the only certain and by far the quickest way to have that money released is to get the institutions back up and running today, because, whether we agree or disagree, Treasury sees that £3·3 billion as part of a restoration package. Only the DUP can do that, so I call on it again not just to listen to the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland but to act in those people's best interests. Sir Jeffrey has said that the time for decisions is approaching: I say, with the greatest respect, that it arrived some time ago. For our part, we will do all that we can to facilitate that restoration, and, today, as we have done on every other occasion, we will vote for every candidate for Speaker until one is successfully elected, if not today, then, I hope for the sake of my constituents, in the very near future.

1,069 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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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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