Member's statement: Civil Service Inclusive Language Guide

Member's statement by Mr Timothy Gaston on 2 December 2024.

MLA: Mr Timothy Gaston
Party at the time: Traditional Unionist Voice
Date: 2 December 2024
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: Civil Service Inclusive Language Guide
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4686411

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The Civil Service inclusive language guide, which was published by the Finance Minister, amounts to an attack on the basic building blocks of society. In spite of that, the Finance Minister has confirmed to me that there was no call-in at the Executive triggered by other parties; thus, the document could be said to carry the Executive's stamp of approval. One has only to consider page 16, where civil servants are advised that instead of the words "Mum" or "Dad", they should use "Parent", "Adult" or "Caregiver". Civil servants should not talk about "Husband", "wife", "boyfriend" or "girlfriend", but instead "Partner" or "spouse". On page 23 of the guide, civil servants are told not to refer to "Christian Name" but should instead ask for a person's forename. The guide also seeks to ban the term "Illegal immigrants". The truth is that there is nothing inclusive about the policy document. It seeks to eradicate any trace of our nation's Christian heritage and assaults the most basic building blocks of society, seeking to eradicate not just husbands and wives but even mothers and fathers from official speech. All of that comes from a Department that has responsibility for the legislation that covers marriage in Northern Ireland. In '1984', George Orwell described how the state creates "Newspeak", a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary that is designed to limit freedom of thought. Why? Because, as a character in '1984' says:
"the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words with which to express it."
That, frankly, is what the inclusive language guide is all about. It is about control of speech and control of thought to the point at which we do not know what a mother is, what a father is, what a husband is or even what a woman is. There are serious policy issues that flow from that. I am appalled that there is no veto of the guidance by the Executive.

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

Assessment

Qualifying Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues

Jev’s structured answers met every documented threshold for a qualifying culture-war activity.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.83 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
Criteria met: Identity framing (0.89); Cultural grievance politics (0.92); Dog-whistle messaging (0.66); Controversy escalation (0.89).
The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.95).
Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
The text adopts an antagonistic or dog-whistle framing, which qualifies even alongside legitimate scrutiny.

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

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.89	Yes
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.30	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.92	Yes
Dog-whistle messaging	0.66	Yes
Controversy escalation	0.89	Yes
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.18	No
Overall judgement	0.83	Above qualifying threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.04
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.01
Adopts it (chosen)	0.95

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.89
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.10
Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)	0.01
No identity-related subject	0.00
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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