Debate contribution: Adult Protection Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 30 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Mike Nesbitt

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

30 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Adult Protection Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5043519

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I am delighted to open this first debate on the Adult Protection Bill. It has been a long time coming. In fact, it was January 2020 — five and a half years ago — when the Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland published his report, 'Home Truths', on his investigation into Dunmurry Manor care home. Furthermore, in August 2020, an independent review of the leadership and governance at Muckamore Abbey Hospital was published. Subsequent to those reports and the shocking safeguarding failings at Muckamore and Dunmurry Manor, it was recognised that there was a need to review and improve the Department's adult safeguarding policy. In September 2020, my predecessor, Robin Swann, announced his intention to legislate. A public consultation on the legislative options ran between December 2020 and April 2021. During that period, the Department held 19 engagement sessions, and 89 consultation responses were received. It was clear from the responses that legislative change was necessary and that more needed to be done to protect the most vulnerable people in our care. The objective of the Adult Protection Bill is to improve and strengthen the adult protection process across Northern Ireland. The Bill introduces additional powers and responsibilities to support our health and social care system to protect adults who are at risk of harm. Placing adult protection on a statutory footing will also help bring us into line with neighbouring jurisdictions. Such legislation already exists in England, Scotland and Wales, and similar work is currently being undertaken in the Republic. I now come to the Bill. The entirety of Part 1 is written in the context of seven principles that the Bill sets out: prevention; autonomy; empowerment; dignity; proportionality; partnership; and accountability. Part 1 introduces a duty on a health and social care trust to make enquiries in cases in which someone who is suspected of being an "adult at risk", as defined by the Bill, is brought to its attention. Following on from that duty, the Bill introduces new powers for the trusts that will assist them in their investigations. Powers include a power of entry that will enable suitably trained and qualified adult protection social workers to enter a residence for the purpose of determining whether intervention is required in order to protect an adult at risk of harm. Trusts will also be able to apply to a Magistrates' Court for the granting of a range of protective measures. An assessment order will allow the person to be interviewed in an alternative location. A removal order will allow the person to be removed to another location for up to seven days if there are concerns that the person may be at immediate risk of harm. A banning order will ban a person from being in a specified location for up to six months if an adult is being, or is likely to be, seriously harmed by that person. Each of those orders is subject to a number of conditions. Under normal circumstances, they may be used only where the adult at risk has consented to their use. In addition to the protection orders, Part 1 includes a power for an adult protection social worker to examine records, including financial records, in circumstances in which there is suspected financial abuse. There are also requirements about the provision of independent advocates to support adults at risk. Additionally, there is a requirement for a trust to establish and have regard to the views of relatives, carers and other interested persons, as well as to keep them informed of the trust's actions with the adult at risk. That aspect was of particular concern to those families whose loved ones suffered abuse at Muckamore and at Dunmurry Manor. My officials engaged with those families throughout the drafting of the Bill, and I hope that the inclusion of that duty will provide them with some assurance that their views have been fully considered. Part 2 provides for the establishment of an Adult Protection Board for Northern Ireland and places a duty on the Department to establish such a board. The board will operate on a basis similar to that on which the children's Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI) operates and will have responsibility for coordinating and ensuring the effectiveness of adult protection regionally. It will also undertake serious case reviews, which are something new in Northern Ireland. Part 3 introduces offences that relate to ill treatment and wilful neglect. The offences apply to care workers and care providers. Finally, Part 4 confers on the Department the power to make regulations on the installation and use of CCTV systems on the premises of the listed establishments for the purpose of safeguarding resident adults at risk. To be clear, that does not mean mandatory installation of CCTV. I fully recognise the impact that CCTV records had on highlighting the truly reprehensible abuse that took place in Muckamore Abbey Hospital. Indeed, without that evidence, we may not have uncovered the abuse. However, making CCTV mandatory in care settings would mean that that could apply in an individual's own home if they were being cared for in that environment. That could affect one of my loved ones or one of yours. Such infringement on anyone's individual human rights is not within the gift of the House, nor would I consider it to be a step that we should take if doing so was within the Assembly's legislative competence. The regulations will place structure around organisations to decide whether CCTV should be installed and direct how it should be managed, monitored and maintained. The content of the CCTV regulations shall be subject to full public consultation down the line. However, where CCTV is installed it will be for the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) to monitor and enforce its compliance with the CCTV regulations. The Adult Protection Bill is intended to strengthen and underpin the adult protection processes here. There are additional duties and powers for those who are entrusted with safeguarding adults at risk; offences that aim to close gaps in the current provision; regulatory-making power to govern the use of CCTV; and provision for establishing a body to coordinate adult protection and investigate failings at a regional level. I hope that we can all agree on the importance of protecting those at risk in our society. The failings that we have seen at places like Muckamore Abbey Hospital and Dunmurry Manor care home should never have happened in the first place and they must never happen again. The Bill is an important step in transforming our social care system. I look forward to hearing what Members have to say about it.

1,112 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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