Debate contribution: Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 4 November 2025.

MLA: Mr Eóin Tennyson
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 4 November 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill: Consideration Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5216412

Text

I thank the Member for that intervention. The subsection (5) that he refers to is the technical amendment to ensure that the Bill reads coherently when laying the requirement that the regulations must be laid before the Assembly within 12 months from the day that the Act receives Royal Assent. My understanding is that there is no substantive change, and that is certainly not the intent of the amendment; rather, it is just to ensure that the Bill reads correctly when the amendment is made. For me, this is a fundamental point of principle. Some issues are beyond charging, and it is important to make that case. Of course, there is a difference between policy and legislation, but, with regard to the practical outworkings, no other jurisdiction has felt it necessary to make that policy change as a result of an influx of applications. There have been references to hypothetical situations: I have not heard a concrete example of where the Department would be overwhelmed or the system abused. It would be bad faith for anybody to seek to abuse such a sensitive and important process. Amendment No 2, tabled by the Alliance Party, is preferable to the DUP's amendment No 3. I recognise that it goes some way to eliminate a charge for a first certificate or an amended certificate. It allows for charges to be levied for subsequent copies, and I have difficulty with the idea that charges could be levied if, for example, two parents separate and a copy is made for one of them. That would be an important issue for them, and they, too, would have been affected by the loss of a family member.
I thank the Member for that clarification. However, if one of those parents loses their certificate, they would potentially face a charge to have it replaced.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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 (0.91).
No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
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

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	0.04	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.03	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.04	No
Controversy escalation	0.04	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.91	Yes
Overall judgement	0.04	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	1.00
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it	0.00

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.85
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.12
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.01
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.01
Another identity-related subject	0.01

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:41 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification