Debate contribution: Ministerial Code of Conduct

Debate contribution by Mr Jon Burrows on 10 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Jon Burrows

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

10 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Ministerial Code of Conduct

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5435286

Read the official Assembly record

Text

This motion is wasteful self-indulgence on the part of the Opposition and reeks of double standards by those who support it. It also makes a case for some cultural reforms, but not the sorts that are being envisaged, nor for the same motive, as Mr O'Toole pointed out. Of course, it is wasteful when we have so many things to deal with in Northern Ireland. The standards commissioner costs £600 a day. That is why I would not complain about being told to "shut up" on the radio. Frankly, I would rather that £600 a day be spent on fixing potholes than on litigating words that have been said. It is wasteful because of the pressing issues that we have in Northern Ireland. The issues that my colleague has in Health and those that exist in Justice, Infrastructure and across the board are huge, and we are spending more time debating motions like this one. If we are not dealing with non-binding motions, it seems that we are dealing with litigating and arbitrating over words or posts. People in the real world will be wondering what on earth we are doing.

I will come to the conduct of Mr Lyons in a moment, but the motion reeks of double standards. Matthew O'Toole stood up and talked about accountability. In 2024, one of the senior members of the SDLP wilfully and knowingly took part in an illegal parade through the middle of Londonderry. The SDLP took no disciplinary action. That was a breach of criminal law that was sent to court. He has now accepted effectively a caution. No action was taken. I see that Mr O'Toole does not want to look me in the eye, and I am not surprised.

As we talk about standards and breaking the law, we turn to the Alliance Party. In 2018, an Alliance councillor was caught drink-driving. The party rewarded Mr Patrick Brown with promotion to the position of MLA.

Yes, but since. He was a councillor then, and he was an MLA later.

I come to Sinn Féin. We have seen Mr Sheehan's conduct. Sinn Féin is the party that took part in Bobby Storey's funeral and still says that it was OK to murder people in the past but wants to litigate a post. One of my colleagues said that the post was clumsy. Could it have been drafted better? Did it leave some people wondering, 'What is the meaning of that?". That is for learning after the incident. No one is seriously suggesting that the Minister wilfully tried to whip up tension; it was about looking at something that happened in the heat of the moment in a difficult situation and asking, "Can we collectively learn from how we communicate during a very difficult situation?". That was the reasonable and proportionate thing to do. When I read the Assembly Commissioner for Standards' reports, I am deeply concerned. I used to give expert evidence on reports, one of which proved that Sinn Féin had politically directed the former Chief Constable, who lost his job as a result. However, there are significant things about this report. First, conduct and misconduct reports are supposed to look at wilful and dishonest behaviour, not innocent errors — if you call it an error.

No, I will not give way. The issue is that the report polices omissions, which is difficult. Yes, we should be empathetic, but should every post be interpreted on the basis that you should follow factual information with empathy? If I posted tonight, "A road in my constituency is closed because of a fatal road traffic collision", could I be policed for not also saying, "and I have empathy with the family affected"? We are going down a dangerous road. There is confirmation bias throughout the Commissioner's report. She makes the classic error of saying, "X was said, and my interpretation of X is the following" without giving objective supporting evidence. For example, when the Minister said that he was not consulted about the decision, she says that that is a criticism of not being consulted and that the party would not have gone along with the decision that was made. There is no evidence for that.

No, I will not give way. We have a situation in which the standards commissioner, who has been subject to at least two pieces of legal advice since, litigated a Facebook post that was sent at the request of the police. We come back to the issue of whether the post could have been drafted better and been more precise and whether there is any learning. I am sure that there is learning. However, here is the reality: those who tabled the motion have done a lot worse. I note that the Alliance Party now supports reform of this place with a role for the Irish Government. That was a strand one issue even during the 1998 negotiations. The Alliance Party is now going down the line of saying that it is a strand two issue, which reveals where its politics have drifted to. There are many things for us to do in this place, and driving up standards is one of them, but this is wasteful, self-indulgent and unnecessary.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The contribution is mainly a partisan rebuttal in a standards debate. It calls the motion "wasteful self-indulgence", argues that the Commissioner's report shows "confirmation bias" and "polices omissions", and accuses the motion's supporters of "double standards". It does contain identity-tinged jabs: it says one party "still says that it was OK to murder people in the past", and that another party's position on an Irish Government role "reveals where its politics have drifted to". These are attacks on parties' records and positions rather than on a community as a whole, and they are not the main thrust, which is the Minister's conduct and the soundness of the report.

Public interest or divisiveness

Much of the text engages with a real accountability question: how ministerial conduct complaints should be judged, whether an error in a social media post amounts to misconduct, and what the process costs. But a large part is whataboutery against named parties, including a Troubles-legacy barb and a constitutional dig, which scores points rather than dealing with the substance. Both elements are substantial, though the function is ordinary adversarial politics rather than promoting hostility to a group.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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