Debate contribution: The Coronavirus Act 2020 (Registration of Deaths and Still-Births) (Extension) (No. 2) Order (Northern Ireland) 2024

Debate contribution by Ms Diane Forsythe on 22 April 2024.

MLA

Ms Diane Forsythe

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

22 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

The Coronavirus Act 2020 (Registration of Deaths and Still-Births) (Extension) (No. 2) Order (Northern Ireland) 2024

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4484074

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support of the motion for practical and operational reasons, on the agreed condition that this will be the last extension of this element of the regulations and that a new piece of stand-alone legislation will be introduced to be in effect from September 2024 to deliver the functionality covered. We are clear: the coronavirus pandemic is over, the legislation that was introduced to enable powers over that time has no place in our current legislative framework, and it is our job and our duty to finish the job of ending this.

In the times of restrictions, however, many practical tasks were reviewed, and, in addition to the core Coronavirus Act, subsidiary legislation was made to enable those tasks to happen. The legislation to enable telephone and electronic registration of deaths or stillbirths and the electronic transmission of documentation in those circumstances was one such piece of legislation. It was clearly an efficient and operationally effective piece of law and should have been adopted as stand-alone legislation sooner. Our DUP representatives on the Finance Committee, who are sitting either side of me, have made that point firmly in the months since the proposed extension was brought to the Committee. We made it clear that we would support no further extension beyond March 2024 without confirmation that a separate legislative vehicle was to be established rather than have something simply tagged on as an extension of coronavirus legislation. Following on from that firm position, we were satisfied on Wednesday past to hear of the draft proposal from the Department of Finance to introduce stand-alone legislation and SL1s. The Deaths and Still-Births (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024 and the Deaths and Still-Births (Electronic Communications) Order (Northern Ireland) 2024 were in there, with enactment powers drafted to be in place for 16 September 2024.

Having stand-alone legislation is the right way in which to manage this. We would have preferred the Department to have introduced it earlier and for it to have been what we were speaking to today, but today we have the task of considering the extension of the existing law until September 2024. The deaths and stillbirths registration process introduced under the Coronavirus Act 2020 has now been in use for four years and has become the normal registration process, alongside the option to attend in person, if that is the informant's wish. Now that it is well established as the status quo for Northern Ireland's registration process, to remove the ability to register in the way that has operated for the past four years would place a sudden and immediate pressure on the Department of Finance and the Department of Health, as well as on GPs, to change current practice for completing such tasks. The General Register Office (GRO) sought feedback from some main stakeholders on the new legislation, and they noted how the public response to the swiftness of contact with the registrar to enable death registration to take place so promptly is positive, while telephone registration has been less traumatic for the next of kin, because they are usually able to have family with them to provide support rather than having to attend the registration office, often on their own. The current process is working well, has become firmly established, is making the process smoother and more efficient and is reducing trauma for those who have suffered bereavement. We therefore support its continuation. We fully support the new stand-alone legislation, which will affirm the process in our law. In the interim, however, we support the extension as a pragmatic necessity until the stand-alone legislation is brought into effect in September 2024.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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