Debate contribution: Holding Ministers to Account

Debate contribution by Mr Phillip Brett on 10 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Phillip Brett

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

10 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Holding Ministers to Account

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5225008

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Sometimes, when I come to this place, I think that I am living in a parallel universe. Having exactly the same debate this evening as we had this morning only confirms my suspicions. I read with interest the motion from the leader of the Opposition in the Order Paper this morning. Following my promotion to the Executive Office Committee, I get to respond to such motions. The motion states:

"that the current structure of government in Northern Ireland makes it impossible to fully hold Ministers to account for their actions".

It was not those on these Benches who came up with the rules of the game. We on these Benches are often lectured as though the Belfast Agreement was written on tablets of stone passed down by Moses himself and cannot be touched or changed, but, when that does not suit the narrative of the Opposition, suddenly, it can be changed. The motion goes on to criticise the existing structures in the Assembly. Mr O'Toole's party brought forward the very structures that he criticises. Now, he is like the child who brings his football to the game in the street and, when he does not get his own way, takes the football and goes home. He and his party have been voted out of office, and, because the electorate does not want them in the Government, they want to change the rules. The people of Northern Ireland see through those flimsy arguments. In his speech at the start of the debate, the leader of the Opposition said that there had been clear breaches of the law and the code by the Minister of Education. That indicates clearly why no party should support the motion from the leader of the Opposition: he has no evidence to back that up as fact. No independent report has been made. Alongside his comrade in People Before Profit, he tables a motion of exclusion of the Minister before the Minister has been found guilty of a single thing. That is what the motion is about. I struggled to take lectures on the ministerial code from the leader of the Opposition when sitting behind him as he made his speech was Mr Durkan. Mr Durkan, of course, was found by the High Court to have breached the ministerial code when he acted illegally to approve the Belfast metropolitan area plan (BMAP). Once again, it is one rule for the SDLP, and it thinks that others should be held to account for those —.

Happily.

The Assembly has such ability, Ms Bradshaw; that is why cross-community support is required. I believe that, if a Minister were found to be in breach of the law, parties across the House would come together to take clear actions. I am happy to give way to Ms Armstrong, but maybe she is just shaking her head.

Of course, you could follow in your predecessors' steps and redesignate to other parties when it suits your political agenda, Ms Armstrong, but I do not need to take any lectures from you about —

Sorry, you have had your say. Stop chuntering from a sedentary position. You will get your chance to speak. We have had it laid out clearly today from—

Thank you. I appreciate that. There are mechanisms for the House to hold Ministers to —

Mr Deputy Speaker, when Alliance Party Members speak and anyone dares to reply or make a facial expression, they call it sexism; they call it misogyny; and they call it abuse. Yet they sit in the corner making faces and snide comments when unionists speak, and, when you react to them, they call it a personal attack. This is a debating chamber —

Clearly, there is no breach of Standing Orders, so the Chair of the Procedures Committee may wish to do some homework before trying to lecture me in the Chamber. The motion is a pointless exercise. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee is already taking forward important work in this regard. I expected the leader of the Opposition to put forward some proposals or solutions in today's motion as to what he wanted to see in the reform package, but, once again, he has tried to outsource the hard work to someone else, calling on the First Minister and deputy First Minister to bring them forward. If the SDLP were serious about this —.

I have only 30 seconds left, Matthew. If the SDLP were serious about reform proposals, it could have tabled them for the Assembly to discuss in detail and debate, but, instead, it wants to outsource that work to this party and to the party opposite. As a party, we will continue to engage with the work of the Assembly and Executive Review Committee because no serious proposals have been put on the table by the Opposition here today. The parties in the Chamber should treat the motion with the contempt that it deserves.

823 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.

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