Debate contribution: Speech and Language Therapy: Criminal Justice System

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 20 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Mike Nesbitt

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

20 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Speech and Language Therapy: Criminal Justice System

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4381170

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank every Member and the Minister for contributing to this important debate. I also thank those Members who welcomed the issue being brought to our attention. Thanks also to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists who defined the issue in three ways: it is our ability to make ourselves understood; it is our ability to understand what is being said to us; and it is also learning how to speak to different people in the right way at the right time. I should declare that, for most of my adult life, I was making a living as a broadcast journalist. Every day, I was able to practice that in trying to make myself understood, trying to understand what an interviewee was saying to me — unless they were a politician, of course — and knowing that different people will react better, depending on the way that you approach them: hard cop, soft cop and that sort of thing. That is what this is about. It is scary enough for a young person, when a police officer comes knocking on their door or figuratively feels their collar, when they know why the officer is doing that, but we are talking about young people who do not necessarily even understand why the police have taken an interest in them. They do not realise that they may have broken the law and may be in serious trouble. I listened carefully to the comments from Members and I think I have broken it down into four categories. First, being understood, and Mr Beattie opened the debate by talking about how not being understood results in poor outcomes, frustration and not understanding what is happening to you. Joanne Dobson, who I wish well in her new role as Chair of the Justice Committee — I beg your pardon, Joanne Bunting. That is a blast from the past. I am sorry about that.

As Joanne Bunting put it, these frustrations can end up with people becoming violent. They are so frustrated about their inability to articulate what they want to say. The debate pointed out that this is a cross-cutting issue. Mr Beattie said that it is not just for the Department of Justice, it is for the Department of Health, the Department of Education, the Department for the Economy and the Department of Finance. It is an excellent example of the need for an outcomes-based, accountable Programme for Government, which is all about cross-cutting priorities. I make no apology for repeating what I said last night. That Programme for Government must move on from just looking at the inputs and outputs of what we do and focus on the outcomes. Are we actually achieving better results? If we think about the last Programme for Government, which, sadly, never made it beyond the draft stage, we might recall that one of the high-end outcomes was to give children and young people the best possible start in life. This plays exactly into that. Stewart Dickson and Nuala McAllister said that these issues do not develop in prison. These young people who go to prison already have these problems. Therefore, we owe it to them to have a regime that is fit for purpose and will allow us to do our best for them. Mr Dickson developed the role of the Department of Health. Patsy McGlone talked about the role of education and early years, the requirement for multidisciplinary teams and the return of the Healthy Happy Minds scheme. Mr Donnelly, talking from personal experience, also talked about early interventions and the need to embed this in the childcare strategy, which is something that we have already debated since we returned. I very much take his point. My emphasis in that debate was on the economically inactive — in other words, getting the parents back into the workplace — but Mr Donnelly referred to the other side of the coin, which is using childcare to give children the best possible start in life. That cross-cutting theme was also mentioned by Órlaithí Flynn and Maurice Bradley, who, interestingly, asked whether the motion addresses the symptoms or the underlying cause, but there are many causes. Nuala McAllister pointed out many of them, including poverty and a failure to look after the vulnerable in the best possible way, and she called for the Sure Start scheme to be expanded. She also talked about the implications of having a long wait for an audiology department appointment or an assessment for ADHD. Those are all complex issues at which we have to look. Members also focused on youth. Mr Beattie talked the about the high percentage of young people who go into Hydebank with language issues. Patsy McGlone referred to that as well. Ciara Ferguson talked about the need for young people to grow up in a language-rich environment in which they will learn to express their issues. She also suggested that the problem with many children is that they are misdiagnosed and are felt to be outsiders or "problem children", when they are just children who need help. Mr Dickson thought that perhaps the problem is under-diagnosis rather than misdiagnosis of the issues, and he said that it was potentially about poverty, mental health, deprivation and substance abuse: a lot of problems that again emphasise the fact that this is a cross-cutting issue. In a similar vein, Cara Hunter talked about people from deprived backgrounds being the most likely to present with speech, language and communication issues. I move on to the asks that came from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. One ask was for a screening of everybody entering the criminal justice system, and Paula Bradshaw very thoughtfully pointed out that the Department of Health holds assessments and called for information sharing. I understand that that is a very difficult thing to achieve in the modern age, what with GDPR, but that does not mean that it is something that we should not tackle just because it is difficult. If it is the right thing to do, we should do it. The question of training was raised, and Mr Butler spoke from lived experience. He talked about the impact on prison officers, who potentially do not understand exactly how to deal with the issue. Mr Bradley talked about the need for training to help officers understand who needs help. In fact, he called for a training needs analysis across the criminal justice system. There is also the issue of support. Screening, training and support, especially in the youth justice system, are needed. I thank the Minister for her contribution. She pointed out that there were pre-existing, complex and often undiagnosed needs and that we need early help and interventions, as many Members pointed out. She told us that there has been an increase from one to three therapists and then outlined the role that they play in our prisons and the progress that has been made on a multidisciplinary team. She also pointed out that it is a statutory duty of the Department of Health to provide services in the criminal justice system. I finish by once again making the argument, and the Minister makes the same argument, that this has to be a cross-cutting initiative in a Programme for Government that is outcomes-based and accountable. In other words, it is about outcomes, and if we are not delivering the outcomes, the Executive must sit down and say, "Let us do it differently. Let us try something else. We must keep going until we get the solution that works for the people whom we are here to serve". Once again, I thank all Members, and I commend the motion to the House.

1,287 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:42 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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