Debate contribution: Criminal Bar Association: Withdrawal of Services

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 12 January 2026.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

12 January 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statements

Heading

Criminal Bar Association: Withdrawal of Services

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5311917

Read the official Assembly record

Text

First, I have not done more than an hour, because you only get an hour for a statement, so that is incorrect. Secondly, I am not litigating anything. I am doing my duty to keep Members of the Chamber apprised of important issues affecting my Department. That is my duty. Had I not come today, somebody would no doubt have submitted a question for urgent oral answer and then claimed that I had to be dragged here to give Members the information. I have come voluntarily to update Members, as is my responsibility, and I will take no criticism for doing so. When it comes to mediation, to be clear, there is no slight on the Lady Chief Justice. She did not recommend mediation. She suggested mediation as an option in trying to resolve this dispute, and she did so for good reasons, which I have now laid out, I think, three times during this conversation with Members. I do not believe that mediation would take us any further than the current process. Bear in mind that, four days before this escalation was announced, everyone agreed that Judge Burgess's working group was the way to resolve all the outstanding issues and that they would engage fully with that. A month before, they sat in a room with me. Whilst the Member may wish to make judgements about the breakdown in relationships, I sat in that room and we had a very cordial meeting at which promises were made and undertakings were given on my part to deliver the fee uplift in January and ensure that it was backdated and also to meet quarterly with the working group, if that would aid progress. I was given reciprocal undertakings that people would go away and spend the month developing the evidence base that is needed for the refresher pilot, but that did not happen. Mediation will work only if both parties are fully engaged in delivering the resolution, and, as we stand here today, there is no remaining impediment to the criminal Bar returning to full service. Every single ask that it had regarding the partial withdrawal of service has been met. I have done everything that it asked me to do that I can do. Therefore, with respect, I do not think that this is about relationships between me and the Bar, but perhaps the fact that, only days after setting out those commitments to me, the entire criminal Bar committee resigned en masse and was replaced by another group that then signed up to the road map and called for this action says more about relationships within the Bar than it does about relationships between the Bar and me. I want to work with the criminal Bar, and I want to deliver for victims. That is my job, and that is what I am focused on doing.

The 16% uplift that I applied retrospectively to 1 December 2024 was not applied to rates from 2005. It was applied to rates that were agreed in the mediation with the criminal Bar in 2016. People are saying to me, "Go into mediation with the criminal Bar". David Ford did that. He went into mediation and they agreed a fee structure, and now the Bar wants to unpick that and go back to 2005 when devolution had not even happened. It wants me to apply an uplift based on a 2005 fee structure that no longer exists and has no bearing on reality as of today. I applied the 16% uplift on the basis that Judge Burgess asked for it, which was that it would be applied from the 2016 fees. You cannot compare apples and oranges. The nature of the business that the Bar does and the cases that it takes has changed, and, in that time, the fees have also changed. Some have gone up, and some have gone down. There will be areas of work that are more lucrative for members of the Bar and areas of work that are less lucrative. In applying the uplift across all factions of the Bar and across every part of the system, I have tried to ensure that the whole system is viable and that everyone is fairly remunerated. The notion that we can unpick the negotiations back to 2005 is not just illogical but undermines the call for a mediated settlement, because it would be unpicking a mediated settlement that dates back 10 years.

Had the Member been listening earlier, he would have heard me answer that question. The fees and hourly rates for people who do government work are lower. If they want to go to hourly rates for legal aid cases, I can assure the Member that there will be major savings. If they want to work for those hourly rates in legal aid cases, I am up for that. I would be quite happy to go down that route, but that has been discounted by the CBA. The Member has a particular political perspective, but, with all due respect, at no point have I heard the CBA raising concerns that poor people cannot afford justice. I have heard the CBA complaining about its own plight, but not about poor people not being able to afford justice. That is my responsibility and focus. Those are the people who, through the programme of legal aid reform, I am trying to ensure can access legal aid. The strike is not about them; it is about what the barristers get paid. It is about what goes into their bank accounts at the end of the month; it is not about those who need legal aid not being able to get it. If it were, we would be having a very different conversation.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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