Debate contribution: Crime and Policing Bill: Legislative Consent Motion
Debate contribution by Ms Connie Egan on .
- MLA
- Ms Connie Egan
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 23 June 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Crime and Policing Bill: Legislative Consent Motion
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5045913
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I will put on record some short remarks on the principle of extending the Crime and Policing Bill to Northern Ireland through the legislative consent motion. The Bill covers a broad range of devolved matters that will play a key role in ensuring public order and enabling deeper safety across our communities. Given the constricted length of the mandate and its shorter accompanying legislative programme, the Bill provides a key opportunity for the Minister and her Department to make progress and provide additional protection for vulnerable people. That includes the integral creation of offences that will protect our children and young people through the criminalisation of possession of advice or guidance about creating child sex abuse images. Many across the House know that a particular focus of mine is on how we can work across government to tackle violence against women and girls. In that vein, it would be remiss of me not to draw attention to the opportunity that the Bill has created for the Minister to deliver a new stand-alone offence of spiking, of which women and girls make up the majority of victims. Spiking is truly an abhorrent act. Many of us across the Chamber will know someone who has experienced that atrocious crime, yet, at the same time, research by Drinkaware shows that 90% of drink-spiking incidents across the UK go unreported. Alliance is committed to supporting all victims of crime. The creation of the spiking offence will help to reverse that under-reporting and act as a powerful deterrent for those who seek to take advantage of others. The clarity that the offence brings can help us to improve police data collection and increase our understanding of the prevalence of spiking in our clubs, bars, nightlife and even our homes. Such understanding will mean that we can better tackle its occurrence and protect victims. The Bill will allow the better protection of all our constituents, giving additional tools to police to deal with the outworkings and detection of crime. I hope that all across the Chamber will join Alliance in passing the LCM.
347 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: 0.04 (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 (0.89).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.98).
- Subject area: Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups.
- 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 | 0.05 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.89 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.98 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.02 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.66 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.34 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:50 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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