Debate contribution: Holding Ministers to Account

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 10 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

10 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Holding Ministers to Account

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5224942

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, we saw histrionic and fairly depressing scenes as the DUP Minister of Education, Mr Givan, sought to respond to legitimate and serious attempts to hold him to account for clear breaches of not just the ministerial code but the Civil Service code of ethics, the Functioning of Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2021 and accepted 60-year-old UK foreign policy. He responded with deflection, arrogance and contempt to detailed points that were put to him by us and others in the Chamber. Perhaps we should have expected that; it was fairly well telegraphed that that would be his response and that of his party. However, it is clear — it was highlighted very starkly to the people who were watching — that there is a crisis of accountability in this society and in these political institutions. There is a crisis in trust in our politics that is systemic and threatens the long-term and even medium-term future of these institutions. Nobody should be in any doubt about that. Since we entered Opposition nearly two years ago, we have been clear about the need to reform these institutions. We have made that one of the core themes of our opposition. The very first thing that I did as leader of the Opposition was to ask the First Minister and deputy First Minister to pledge not to resign their office for the duration of this term. Our first Opposition day was devoted to the theme of reform and the need to progress meaningful change to the way in which these institutions work to, first, make them less likely to collapse; secondly, improve trust among the public in their being accountable and having good governance; and, thirdly, improve policy delivery overall, so that we can be more proud of these political institutions and the public can not just have more trust but have trust in the first place, because, as we know, trust is painfully low. One of the issues that causes people not to trust our political institutions is the feeling that, even when there is a clear and, frankly, overwhelming argument for censuring or holding to account an individual Minister, they are, effectively, immune from that because of the provisions that exist to protect them. I accept that there has been no finding against Mr Givan as yet of a breach of the ministerial code, but, even when there have been findings of breaches of the ministerial code, such as there were with other DUP Ministers last year, the cross-community voting provisions have prevented any meaningful censure. To be clear, I am not talking about removing any or all forms of cross-community voting provision. I do not think that we are ready for that yet, although that does need to be reformed. What we are proposing today is that we need to remove the permanent barrier to any Minister's being held to account. Earlier, DUP Members, in responding, I think, very performatively, although perhaps they were being sincere in some of their responses, listed all the occasions on which Ministers from other parties — particularly from Sinn Féin, although they also mentioned members of my party and Ministers from the Alliance Party — had not been held to account. I assume from those remarks and contributions that those Members will support the Opposition motion, because the upshot of it is that it would make it easier to hold Ministers to account when they are found to have breached the ministerial code or, indeed, the law. We are open-minded about precisely what reform looks like. There are a whole range of measures that we and other parties have proposed for reform to reduce the likelihood of institutional collapse. When it comes to improving ministerial accountability, we have also set down particular things that we think should happen. There should be a legal duty on Ministers and their Departments to work collaboratively and across departmental silos. We should also look to removing some of the permanent barriers that exist to Ministers being held to account, because let me say again that a lot of people watching today's proceedings — those who have been outraged by the conduct of Minister Givan — are not simply people from what are called "nationalist backgrounds", or indeed people who are necessarily critical of the state of Israel in every particular circumstance. They are people who clearly see that he misused his office, and today we proved, again, that we do not have enough power to hold Ministers such as Mr Givan, and others who break the rules, to account. So what should we do? Our motion calls for a fundamental step change in reform. We want the support from the Assembly today to do that, and I state upfront that we will not support any amendments to the motion today. We do not believe that any of the amendments are proposed in good faith, and I will go on to explain why. If we do not get on and reform these institutions before the end of this mandate and prove to the public that we can meaningfully change the way that we do business, we will completely and permanently jeopardise trust in our ability to govern here. I say that because, frankly, the public really has had its patience tested beyond its natural limit by the antics of parties in this institution. The public is deeply distrustful of our politics and of the parties in it. It is incumbent on all of us to get serious about reform. Since February last year, we have not yet got serious about reform. On the very first Opposition day that we had, way back in March last year, an amendment was successfully made to one of our motions, prioritising reform and calling for it to be pushed to the Assembly and Executive Review Committee, which is examining these issues and related issues, specifically in relation to institutional stability, right now. The only reason that that is happening is that my party and I put down a proposal, supported by colleagues from the Alliance Party, which has also put down and moved its own proposals in that Committee. The proposals were not supported at first by either Sinn Féin or the DUP. Indeed, it was only when Sinn Féin changed its position that we were able to begin an inquiry into that in earnest. When we did a call for evidence on reform, Sinn Féin did not even respond. Nor, of course, did the DUP. So there is no evidence whatsoever that Sinn Féin is serious about institutional reform, none whatsoever thus far. Other than its slightly moving its position rhetorically, we have yet to see any meaningful, practical commitment to it. In the past, the DUP was —.

I will happily give way.

No, I do not agree with what the Member has just said. There is nothing to prevent us from having a discussion or taking evidence on the basis of positions that we already have. Those positions can be challenged — we can learn more; we can evolve our proposals — but we are not an academic study group. We are politicians. We are allowed to have positions.

I will give way, but I do not have very much time left.

The Good Friday Agreement was designed to be reformed and updated as we went along. Of course, it was changed fairly negatively in 2006. It was never supposed to be preserved in aspic. The key values need to stay there. The key value is that it exists and that we have inclusive institutions that deliver good government. They are not doing that now. That is the key point, and today's theatre has proven that again. We have had panto villain exploits from Minister Givan, who, I am sure, was delighted with some of what happened today, and his party colleagues defended him. That is fine. They have, I think, undermined trust yet again in these institutions, but they are not the only ones to have undermined trust in these institutions. Other parties, including the First Minister's party, have done that.

As I have said in the Chamber repeatedly, there is nothing that prevents us from being clear about our intention to change the rules and to improve how this place works while retaining the core spirit of 1998. Let us improve that; let us improve ministerial accountability; and let us prevent these institutions from collapsing at the drop of a hat, because that looks closer to happening today than it did a month or a year ago. Let us get serious about reform.

I commend the motion to the Assembly.

1,451 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:43 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