Debate contribution: UK COVID-19 Inquiry: Institutional Reform
Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 9 December 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- UK COVID-19 Inquiry: Institutional Reform
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5295827
Read the official Assembly record
Text
No, I will not give way. Reform will not fix incompetence, reform will not fix lazy governance, and reform will not fix stupid. Everything that was constitutional and institutional about this place was held in abeyance at the time of COVID. Reform would not have stopped those parties and the Assembly giving away all its power to one person, no matter who that person was, to dream up regulations and restrictions and have them written up over breakfast, implemented at lunchtime and enforced by supper time. It shifted the whole dynamic of the Executive. The Executive changed, in one move, how they would make decisions that impacted on our people so badly and disastrously. Reform could not have stopped the Coronavirus Act 2020, which made this a zombie Assembly that rubber-stamped horrific laws weeks after they had been enforced and then, of course, superseded. Those laws had been made redundant numerous times over before the Assembly even voted on them.
No, I will not. Whilst the regulations were fleeting, the damage remains to this day: people filled with anxiety, not able to leave their home; people not able to attend school; people who were coerced to take vaccines that damaged them — of course, the Member called for house-to-house and door-to-door vaccine teams to coerce people into taking a vaccine that caused them adverse reactions. That is what we are left with, but it is what Alliance will not get to grips with. When I was asking questions about and raising objections to those restrictions, two SDLP Members came to me in the corridor and said, "You know, Paul, we agree with everything that you say in there". I asked, "Well, why do you not get up off your hind legs and actually say that?", and they said, "No, our party would go through us". That party, the SDLP, then called for the sacking of nurses, who had worked for a whole year on the front line; the SDLP called for their sacking. Those people, the SDLP, even called for the unvaccinated and those who chose not to have the discriminatory certificate to be banished.
Yes, I will, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am referring to module 2 of the UK COVID-19 inquiry, which talked about all those matters. An Alliance Member asked me one day, "Why do you keep asking those questions?". Well, that is our job. It was their incompetence. We know that the Alliance Party played a massive role in the coercion around vaccine certification. We need to grapple with this issue, but to use it as an excuse to reform these institutions, which were held in abeyance? The Executive did not function properly. The Assembly could not do its scrutiny work. It should take months to pass regulations and legislation in this place.
Yes. I thank the Member for that vital intervention. It is that Act, which still sits on the statute book, that has done the damage. We have families who are filled with regret, guilt and torment because they could not give their loved ones a proper send-off according to their religion. They could not do that. In Ireland, North and South, a wake is really important, and those people were denied it. In fact, they could not even stand in the open air in a field — a burial ground. That was disastrous, and we still live with the consequences. Assembly Members in the Chamber were denied the ability to scrutinise and denied their say, because we passed laws weeks after they had been enforced, when they had been duplicated, removed and superseded three or four times over. That is no way to run an Executive; that is no way to run an Assembly. In a crisis, we need more scrutiny powers and more of a say, not less, but that is what all those parties supported at the time: shame on you all.
650 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: 0.32 (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).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.84).
- Subject area: Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice).
- The overall probability was low and the text did not adopt any identity-based framing.
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 | 0.11 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.12 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.33 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.28 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.54 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.32 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.84 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.04 |
| Adopts it | 0.12 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.78 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.11 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.07 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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