Debate contribution: Executive Reform
Debate contribution by Ms Kate Nicholl on .
- MLA
- Ms Kate Nicholl
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 4 March 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- Executive Reform
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4254187
Read the official Assembly record
Text
When I was elected as an MLA, my first act in the Chamber was to sign the register and designate as United Community. It has always been strange to me that we were lumped into the Other group: we are not other; we are so much more than that. Then, I took my seat, and we tried to elect a Speaker. We could not. The cross-community votes of my cross-community party did not count in that. I spent the next two years being an MLA but being unable to legislate because one party has the power to bring everything down. My experience as an MLA has been severely hindered by flaws in the system. We need to change that. I welcome the motion. It is important that we have this discussion today. I will focus my comments specifically on designation, which I would have liked to see referenced in the motion. The urgent need to change it is a case that Alliance has been making for many years. The Good Friday Agreement is precious, but it was designed to be a living document; to be the beginning rather than the end of a process. Not to move forward and not to change is dangerous and damaging to the vision of the Good Friday Agreement. Society has changed dramatically since 1998. The number of Alliance MLAs on these Benches is testament to that. We are all given the label of "Other", but we are many things. I am Zimbabwean, my mother is South African, my father is Irish, and my children have Irish and British passports; I have them. Our identities are complex, and they should not be barriers to be overcome. They are the stuff of pluralism and vibrancy, and they are something to celebrate and respect. The process of designation, when MLAs sign into the Assembly, is unnecessary. It embeds division and is part of what makes our institutions so unstable. When we are asked in the Chamber to vote on a cross-community basis, our votes, on these Benches, are treated differently. My colleague Kellie Armstrong is particularly passionate about that and far more articulate on the subject than I am. Not to have the same weight on a range of votes — including on the election of a Speaker, changes to Standing Orders, and approvals to the Budget — is quite frankly untenable and demeaning to me and my colleagues. As Kellie pointed out, if that was the case in any other area or aspect of someone's identity, it would be discrimination. Our society has changed, and our institutions must reflect that. The values of mutual respect, equality and partnership are infused in the Good Friday Agreement, and they should remain the driving forces of our politics. To fulfil those values, however, we cannot stand still. We must modify and update the functions of these institutions. Cross-community voting continues to treat cross-community parties as less than those who are nationalist or unionist. The continued use of designation is no longer tenable, and it has been untenable for some time.
I thank the leader of the Opposition. On the Alliance Party website, there is a document with proposals for reform, which we published in June 2022. It details our short- and medium-term changes in the line of reform. It is something that we feel very passionate about, and it should not be something that we just talk about. We have laid out how we would achieve it. Yes, I absolutely agree that there are different areas to focus on, and we should discuss how those should progress. The final point that I want to make is that Members from the DUP said that we should be discussing things that are relevant to Northern Ireland. I think that this is so relevant: the fact that we have had no Assembly; that we can just collapse it and have no Ministers in place to make local decisions for local people or to look at budgets or have no Committees scrutinising and able to ask questions. The impact that it has is huge, and that is not just on delivery. It has a psychological impact as well. People see a failed Assembly, and they feel like this place has failed, but it has not. This is a brilliant place to live. Our people are brilliant, and there are wonderful opportunities. We are talented and creative, and we should be celebrating everything that is good. The ability to collapse everything — the failure within the structure — needs to be addressed and is very relevant to the House. We will support the motion and will continue, as the Alliance Party, to do everything that we can to progress reform.
786 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.14 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.78).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.56).
- Subject area: Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.35 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.12 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.04 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.12 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.78 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.14 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.56 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.01 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.41 |
| Adopts it | 0.02 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.66 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.16 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.12 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.06 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:40 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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