I beg to move

That this Assembly is ashamed of the long suspensions of devolution over the past 10 years; accepts responsibility for the decline in public services that has taken place over that time; apologises to public-sector workers who have experienced pay injustice over the past 10 years; resolves that the functioning of the Assembly and the Executive should never again be subject to the veto of a single party; and calls on the First Minister and deputy First Minister to include a specific commitment to reform of the institutions in the Programme for Government.

The Business Committee has agreed to allow up to one hour and 30 minutes for the debate. The proposer of the motion will have 10 minutes in which to propose and 10 minutes in which to make a winding-up speech. All other Members will have five minutes.

I am pleased to open the debate on the first Opposition day of the new mandate. Opposition is a natural and healthy part of democratic politics, and we intend to perform that role constructively, as we have thus far.

During the negotiations that led to the creation of the institutions, Senator George Mitchell famously pledged to bring his then newly born son back to Belfast one day to listen to and watch a sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Senator Mitchell said that he hoped:

"we would watch and listen as the members debated the ordinary issues of life in a democratic society: education, healthcare, agriculture, tourism."

Senator Mitchell was able to fulfil his wish in 2012 with his then teenage son, but, when he returned last year for the 25th anniversary of the agreement that he helped to broker and that created the Assembly, there was no Northern Ireland Assembly to observe. For five of the past seven years, there has been no devolved Government in Northern Ireland at all. Today's motions from the SDLP on Opposition day are about preventing that from ever happening again, because, if it does and the institutions collapse again, I am not alone in believing that they will simply never re-emerge.

(Madam Principal Deputy Speaker [Ms Ní Chuilín] in the Chair)

Those of us in politics and the media often focus a lot on the party political impact of one decision or another, asking, "What does that mean for the DUP?", "How might Sinn Féin react to what the DUP does?" and "How will the rest of the parties behave?". Those are legitimate and necessary questions in a democracy, but, when taken to an extreme, a fixation on political stand-offs leads us to the situation where public services and, indeed, the public themselves are of secondary importance. For nearly a decade, party political stand-offs and vetoes have allowed our public services and our public realm to decay and, in some cases, collapse. I scarcely need list the litany of problems that beset our public services, from the worst healthcare waiting lists in western Europe to chronically underfunded childcare to special educational needs at breaking point or beyond. None of these problems were created by Stormont collapse, and none of them will be solved merely by the return of devolved government. However, all of these problems — all of them, along with virtually every other public policy challenge that we face — have been undeniably made worse by the absence of devolved government: the absence of ministerial decisions to decide priorities and allocate budgets accordingly, the absence of a multi-year spending programme to allow health service leaders to recruit doctors and nurses on a long-term basis; and the absence of any funding guarantees until the last minute for large parts of the community and voluntary sector.

Although we are all — at least, the vast majority of us — pleased to see devolved government return, we cannot pretend that public trust in the very idea of this Assembly and Executive has not been profoundly damaged. It has. In a recent survey conducted by Queen's University, only a third of voters thought that the Executive would survive until the end of this mandate. That is an extraordinary statistic. Despite the positivity around the restoration of Stormont, only one in three people think that it will last three years. That statistic should shame all of us in this Chamber. That level of cynicism and distrust is exactly why I asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister to pledge to not resign their office before the end of this mandate. That was not a stunt. I was asking a question that most of our citizens want to know the answer to.

Our first motion today begins by expressing shame on behalf of this entire institution for its repeated collapses and the profoundly negative consequences that those have had for ordinary citizens, workers and public services. To be clear, that is not about assigning blame, but it is about acknowledging a collective failure of the political class to deliver stable and sustainable government here. To anybody who thinks that we should simply leave the rules unreformed after nearly a decade of chaos and devolution only functioning for a few years out of that time, I simply ask this: are you serious? Can anyone argue with a straight face that we are fine as we are and should just plough on regardless? As the saying goes, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

It is worth unpacking some of that problem. We all know that there are divergent narratives of Irish history, but most of us should be able to agree that, tragically, Northern Ireland has been marked by division between people throughout its existence. There was, of course, division before partition. These institutions were created after nearly 30 years of violent conflict, and that conflict itself came after half a century of one-party rule that excluded one community from virtually all political power. Indeed, at times, that exclusion seemed to be the motivating purpose of the state. That hugely difficult inheritance is why we negotiated a system of power-sharing, of government based on inclusion rather than exclusion. As the party that did so much to shape the Good Friday Agreement, we do not agree with those who think that power-sharing — consociationalism, as it is known among academics — is in itself the root of our problems and our dysfunction. To take such a view is to wilfully ignore history, including the manner in which this jurisdiction was created, as well as ignoring the reality of a post-conflict society.

However, it is possible to reform and change the way that power-sharing works in order to provide a basic guarantee that there will be a government in the first place. Our reform motions today are designed to complement and implement one another. The first motion that I am moving acknowledges the harm done by repeated collapses and then pledges two things. Number one, the principle that no single party should ever again be able to collapse the institutions at will. I do not think that that is unreasonable. Secondly, the Programme for Government should contain a specific commitment to reform. Our second motion, which I will address in more detail when I move it later on today, creates a specific vehicle for producing legislative proposals on reform, namely an Ad Hoc Committee required to produce a report on options for removing the single-party veto by September this year. I am sure that there will be opportunities for us to debate that and for me to answer some of the questions around those proposals during the course of the debate.

Our motions do not prescribe an exact model of reform of the veto, but a number of options have already been publicly advanced. Here, I acknowledge the work of the Alliance Party on this agenda. It has proposed an opt-out model for parties that qualify for one of the top two roles but do not want to take one. The NI Affairs Committee at Westminster proposed a series of related changes, some of which would undercut, although not completely remove, the current veto.

Many of those ideas, such as a move to super-majority voting as opposed to cross-community voting, were based on SDLP proposals.

No one party can or should own reform. By definition, we need to achieve some degree of consensus in order to make it happen. There are multiple routes to reform, but we need to agree today that the first and most urgent change is the removal of the power to collapse the Government, and not make it conditional on other concessions. The protections in the Good Friday Agreement are supposed to build confidence not reinforce mistrust. The purpose of power-sharing is supposed to be positive partnership not negative veto. It has been said in recent days that the heavy lifting on this work needs to be done by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Secretary of State. We strongly disagree. A Tory Secretary of State who is working out his notice will not do this work for us. We need to do it ourselves.

A Member:

Will the Member give way?

I am not going to give way at the minute, but I will give way later on in my winding-up speech. I will answer any questions then, but I am not going to give way at this stage.

A Tory Secretary of State who is working out his notice will not do the work for us. We need to do it ourselves, starting with these Opposition day motions. Let us remember that the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and the Finance Minister are now engaged in a process of negotiation with the Treasury over the financial settlement. As a constructive Opposition, we have said, "We support the asks you are making". However, let us be real: one of the reasons why the Treasury and the Tory Government have been able to be so cynical in their treatment of these institutions and politicians here has been the repeated cycle of collapse. In order to build credibility, not just with the public but with the UK Government and others to reinforce our ability to negotiate, we need sustainable political institutions not ones that collapse so routinely.

As I said, a Tory Secretary of State who is working out his notice will not do this work for us: we need to do it ourselves, starting with these Opposition day motions. Let us protect —.

A Member:

Will the Member give way?

I will give way in my winding-up speech. I am happy to give way then to anyone who does not get in at this stage.

Let us protect the best of the Agreement and reform the veto that is undermining trust in the rest of it. The photo ops and positive vibes of the past month have been welcome, but we have seen this movie before, and rather than wait for the nasty plot turn and not-so-shock ending, let us change the script. Let us never again plunge our public services and our people into the vortex of no Government and no hope.

I commend the Opposition motion to the Assembly.

Today's motion refers to "the past 10 years" and:

"the decline in public services that have taken place over that time".

Indeed, our public services and the workers who sustain them are part of the bedrock of our society, along with our people, communities and local economies. Ensuring that they can operate on a sustainable footing to address need and, importantly, drive aspiration is essential. Therefore, in doing so, addressing the underlying root causes that impact our public services is critical, particularly when you look at the events of the past decade.

What I find bizarre in the motion is that, while it mentions the impact on our public services and the cause and effects of that, there is no mention of the British Tory Government and their regressive policies. When we look back over the past 10-plus years, we have witnessed a number of societal shocks: the impact of the financial crash, Cameron and Osborne's Tory austerity policies, Brexit, COVID, global events and the cost-of-profit crisis. When you look at all those shocks, some of which were deliberate policy and political choices, you see the impact that they have on driving poverty and inequality and how their effects disproportionately impact on certain sections of our population: our women and children, those with disabilities, our working class, our minority ethnic communities and, indeed, our older people.

The Tory's chosen policy of austerity has had, and is having, a devastating impact on public services. Countless pieces of research have shown the impact of savage Tory cuts on public services and their ability to respond, not just here but all across England, Scotland and Wales. Billions of pounds have been stripped from public services since 2010, which has had deadly impacts and consequences. Research has shown that Tory austerity policies since 2010 were the main cause of the decline in the rate at which life expectancy has increased. A further review showed the impact of Tory austerity on our health system: it is causing increased poverty, unemployment and homelessness and, as a result, putting considerable strain on our health service and its ability to respond. That has been exacerbated by Brexit and the loss of essential European funding, which targeted those most in need. Today, in this Building, the Equality Coalition is showcasing the need for an anti-poverty strategy, due to the impacts that are being felt here. That is backed by the women's movement and the wider community and voluntary sector, which see the impacts of Tory cuts.

The Executive have protected people by mitigating the worst excesses of Tory cuts. Challenging those cuts must remain our priority. We need appropriate funds to address that need, particularly as we are, as was stated, in a post-conflict society. That commitment was given by all Executive parties and the Opposition on 4 February in a joint letter to the British Treasury, which was signed by Sinn Féin, the DUP, Alliance, the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP. It called on the need to make immediate and durable changes to our funding arrangements; to deliver on public-sector pay; to deliver a fiscal framework; and, importantly, to plan for fiscal sustainability. If we are seriously to address the underlying root causes of inequality and develop world-class sustainable public services, we all must work collectively to address the funding shortfall, challenge austerity and transform our public services to meet the needs of our workers, families and communities. That is what the public really want us to be doing here today and in the days ahead, and that is where our focus is and will remain.

Happy Opposition day to all Members across the House. Given the immediate media attention that there has been on the topic, we should define what the Opposition is: it is the party that lost the election. The SDLP has a significant record in that regard: it has gone from being the largest nationalist party in this place to the second largest. Given recent polling regarding the Alliance Party, perhaps the SDLP is now the third largest nationalist party in the Chamber.

For weeks and months, Mr O'Toole was clinging to the title of leader of the official Opposition, at the whim of whether the Ulster Unionists or Alliance would take it. They chose not to, so that duty and responsibility lie with Mr O'Toole. I thought that we were told that we were to have a constructive Opposition: one that relished the opportunity to hold the Government to account on the bread-and-butter issues. Do we now see the real political priorities of the SDLP? There is no motion from the SDLP health spokesperson, Mr McGrath, on waiting lists and constructive suggestions for how to bring them down. There is no motion from the SDLP education spokesperson, Ms Hunter, on much-needed capital investment for new schools or on special educational needs funding challenges. There is no motion from the Public Accounts Committee Chairman, Mr McCrossan, on the huge concerns in the Northern Ireland Audit Office report.

Will the Member give way?

I think that we will hear plenty from the official Opposition shortly.

Finally, there is no motion from Mr O'Toole, the Chair of the Finance Committee, on the Budget. Given that a UK Budget will be set out later this week, surely a motion outlining those concerns would be the people's priority, rather than petty point-scoring from the official Opposition. Instead, we have a motion on proposed changes to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement from the party of super-majorities, rather than of accommodation. Is that the real party of John Hume? That question needs to be asked.

Turning to the issue of reform, we do not deny that the challenges to the stability of the institutions and the length of time that the Executive and Assembly have not fully functioned over the past 25 years are regrettable. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we live in a contested space, emerging from decades of terrorism. Success is not always guaranteed in that regard. This is a reminder of the need to preserve rather than destroy the delicate balance of community relations that is interwoven into strand one of the agreement.

Issues of instability, regardless of from which political party or community they may come, can often be complex, as has been seen in recent times. Let us look at the most recent issue of instability. We had arrangements foisted upon the people of Northern Ireland that not one democratically elected unionist could support — not one. If we had a similar situation arise whereby, for example, nationalism had an issue, would that likely lead to a similar outcome? The SDLP MP Claire Hanna was on record as saying that, in such circumstances —

[Inaudible.]

No, it is true. I will speak to the record, actually, to the leader of the Opposition:

“You cannot imagine that people would take that without civil disobedience at a very minimum.”

The inescapable truth is that we live in a contested society.

Will the Member give way?

Absolutely.

Does the Member accept that although the mandatory coalition that we have to deal with in Northern Ireland is an imperfect system, it is the one that we have to work with? It means compromise and working together on issues.

A Member:

[Interruption.]

The Member has an extra minute.

Will Members stop shouting from a sedentary position, please?

I thank the Member for his intervention. That leads me to my next point, which is that the inescapable truth is that we live —.

Will the Member give way?

I will have to continue to get through.

We live in a contested place. The best way to defend the institutions from collapse is ultimately to ensure that we talk about issues that affect everyday working families, our front-line workers and our schoolchildren, as well as how to protect the most vulnerable in society. That is where the Programme for Government priorities should be. It is not by coincidence but by design that the mechanisms for review are not only built into strand one but rest outside the Executive. That reflects the real need to ensure that all Members and parties have a stake in and the space to give attention to them.

Consensus politics is the only way in which we can stave off instability. The political arrangements in Northern Ireland must be capable of commanding the broad support of all traditions across our Province. The motion before the House simply implies that devolution could still operate and succeed outside those parameters. That is fanciful to say the least. Cross-community consent has been essential to achieving progress in the Province, and it should be viewed as the solution not the problem.

The Member's time is up.

Unlike the previous Member to speak, we, in the Alliance Party, are delighted that this is the first topic chosen for debate on Opposition day, as it reflects an Alliance Party policy and priority of long-standing. We will, of course, support the motion. I welcome the Opposition to this discussion. To emphasise just how long-standing our party's position on meaningful reform is, I have here a document called 'Agenda for Democracy' that we, in the Alliance Party, published 20 years ago today. It is remarkable how prophetic that was, given that it was published even before the St Andrews Agreement. It sought fundamental revisions, not quick fixes. The quick fixes since, as the proposer will agree, have only made things worse.

Will the Member give way?

Go ahead.

Thank you to the Member for helpfully outlining her party's commitment to ensuring the reform of these institutions. Can the Member remind the House, during the collapse from 2017-2020, how many times her party recalled the Assembly to try to move it on and get it back up and running when one party was blocking its return?

The Member has an extra minute.

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker.

You obviously were not a Member then. The issue at that time was that we were renegotiating to get us back. We called for a recall many times. We took things forward. However, the argument that you had with the UK Government over those two years could not be solved in this Chamber. Shame on you and shame on your party for the impact that that had on our public sector, which has seen a decline. For you to hold the whole country to ransom over your party issue is absolutely shameful. We will feel the effects of that for generations.

Some Members:

Hear, hear.

On a point of order, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Member to address her comments directly to me? I know that she was a member of the Tory party, unlike me, but will you correct the Member on whether she should address me directly with her comments?

I am going to respond to that point of order. All remarks should be made through the Chair, but we need to accept that this is just the cut and thrust of debate. If you have an issue regarding what I just said, go and see the Speaker, but I encourage Members just to look as if they are talking through the Chair.

[Laughter.]

Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I was responding directly to the comments.

Some parts of our 'Agenda for Democracy' document have actually been implemented, including those parts on the reduction in the number of Departments and the devolution of justice. The document is still relevant as it sought an Executive to be founded, like almost any other Government in the democratic world, through negotiation and compromise. Taking into account our particular circumstances, the idea was that any coalition should be able to take office provided that it had the support of a weighted majority in the Assembly, which would ensure that it was inclusive. Twenty years on, that idea's time has come. It would remove a single party's ability to wield an all-destructive veto, which we saw over the past two years, and parties would be entitled to opt out of the Government but not entitled to force others to opt out too.

Weighted majority voting, ensuring not only an inclusive Government but a genuine choice for the electorate, would also enable the abolition of communal designation. Even back in 2004, that was seen as a crude form of institutionalised sectarianism. In 2024, it is entirely inappropriate for the modern, post-agreement Northern Ireland in which we live and in which people are choosing even more often to step beyond the old dividing lines when making choices in schooling, leisure activities and, indeed, the polling booth.

The point is that designations do not just mean that cross-community votes, whether arising from the application of a petition of concern or otherwise, take a crudely sectarian form where other votes are deemed to count for less, with the result that people opting to vote neither unionist nor nationalist are blatantly discriminated against. It is not right that the electorate who vote for the Alliance Party are, effectively, disenfranchised on important votes. Those votes also mean that the institutions do not function in a manner befitting the post-agreement electorate.

My party colleagues will come back to much of this, but I want to turn to another issue that we raised in our 2022 manifesto. As in many other policy documents, that has a fundamental recognition that our system of government relies, perhaps too much, on allocating every policy area to a particular Department and too little on a genuine sense of collective interest and collective responsibility. It is on the First Minister and deputy First Minister, and the Executive Office, to look at that because we see far too much silo working in the Assembly and in Departments. What is required, therefore, is recognition from all of us, including those who tabled the motion, that there were flaws in the original agreement and that a review mechanism was built into it that was meant to iron those issues out but rarely did. We need to remove crude sectarian vetoes. That is objectively undeniable, but we also need to ensure that the institutions operate in a way that is befitting of the entire society that they are supposed to represent, and we need to move beyond those silos.

I support the motion. I fully understand that it is worded as it is because Members are trying to get the maximum support possible. However, I cannot stand here and give cover to those who caused suspension over five of the past 10 years.

It is important that we say it as it is. We had three years of a boycott by Sinn Féin over a financial issue. Are we better off after that boycott? Are we likely to have another renewable heat incentive (RHI) situation? The reality is that it could be just around the corner. In fact, the rot in our public services set in during those three years. There were then two years of boycott by the DUP over the Northern Ireland protocol. That boycott achieved nothing whatsoever of substance. The Irish Sea border is still there, the European Union still has input into what happens in Northern Ireland, checks of goods arriving into Northern Ireland still take place, and the custom posts are still there. During those two years, our public services crumbled to the extent that some of them cannot be fixed in the short to medium term. We have to be mindful of that. So, no, I will not give cover to those who collapsed these institutions and maintained boycotts, but I promise to work with them, as well as with the Opposition, the Alliance Party, independent Members, the TUV and People Before Profit.

It is the thrust of having a conversation about reform that I support in the motion. Should one party have a veto over devolved government, 25 years after Good Friday Agreement? Absolutely not. The system allowed it, but you have to ask why the system allowed it. The system allowed it because, in 1998, we were trying to stop ourselves from killing each other. That was the focus. We focused on peace and we got peace, but the politics did not fit into place. After the Belfast Agreement, there should have been amendment into the future through collaboration and negotiation. We did not get that, apart from a few scrappy changes that did little to stabilise the Government and keep it from being collapsed at the whim of just one party.

What does reform look like in my mind? Everybody will have a particular view of what reform is, and we could debate every single one of those all day long, but that is not what we are here to do today. I think reform is about negotiation and agreement of an agreed position that takes into account all the political players, including independents, the TUV and People Before Profit, and civic society. All of them have to feed into this, because, remember, it was the people who voted for the 1998 Agreement, and it is the people who need to have a say in what direction we go next. Just because we do not like somebody's point of view does not mean we should exclude them. I will not support exclusion in any shape or form, but it does not look like —

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

Does the Member agree that it is not about exclusion, but it is more that those who do not want and are not willing to participate choose to exclude themselves and to opt out? Rather than using the word "exclusion", we might use "self-exclusion", or say that they are opting out of sitting in an Executive.

The Member has an extra minute.

I am quite comfortable with the word "exclusion". The reason that I say "exclusion" is that there are people in the Chamber who absolutely do not support the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement as it stands. It is important to say that, if we do not listen to those voices — if we try to push them away — we will not get to a full understanding of our society. I am quite happy to stick with the word "exclusion".

What I do not want is another St Andrews Agreement. The St Andrews Agreement was a carve-up between two of the large parties, behind closed doors. It was a quick fix, and it did not work. It has left us in a worse position. The UK and Irish Governments were complicit in that; they just wanted to get this place up and running and nothing more. Quick fixes will not work: pull the thread, and the whole thing could unravel. This is about sitting down, thinking it through for the long term and capturing all the voices that need to be added to the discussion.

We know that the Belfast Agreement had its flaws. It was balancing the unbalanceable, after so much conflict. However, we do not want to fall into the trap of just screaming, "Reform, reform, reform!", without stopping to really think through what reform will mean in the short, medium and long term. I am up for having that discussion and do not think that we should be afraid of it, but that does not mean that I am open to changing every single aspect of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement; it is still the bedrock of government in Northern Ireland. However, I am certainly up for having that discussion. I am willing to talk to anybody inside or outside the Chamber and to those who are in favour and those who are against. Until we get all the views, we will not know the position.

I have listened intently to the points made thus far, particularly by the Opposition, on future reform. It has struck me how little interest or focus seems to have been placed on the principle of consent and how much it would feature in reform as envisaged by the SDLP. I find that concerning, given the importance that the principle of consent has had to politics here for the past 20 years or more. It is no exaggeration to say that politics in Northern Ireland could not function without it.

Cross-community consent has got us to where we are. We should not forget that. It has been essential to political and social progress and should be viewed as a positive influence. Cross-community consent, and what flows from it, is not the problem, but it seems somewhat that the SDLP, in its recent road to Damascus-style conversion into opposition, believes that it is. It appears that the SDLP feels the need to fix something to which John Hume and others from its ranks were so wedded. The reality remains that 80% of us in the Chamber still designate as either nationalist or unionist. My party and Sinn Féin represent the bulk of Members. As such, wider support for both traditions in Northern Ireland remains the dominant force in politics and must be borne in mind if we are to sustain fully functioning institutions representing and delivering for the people who elected us.

The motion raises a valid point about the long-term stability of devolved government. No one can deny that stability was an issue in the past and poses a risk to the House in the future. We must be honest, however, about the root causes of instability. Stability was challenged when the institutions were not functioning for the good of everyone and were not deemed to be representative of all communities. As a party, we have evidenced that we are not afraid of reform of the institutions, where such reform is necessary. Indeed, changes have been made to the petition of concern, for instance, to take into account its impact on Assembly business.

It is incumbent on us all to ensure that government works and is seen to work for everyone in Northern Ireland. We are the guardians of that delicate balance and of the need to ensure that, in a divided society such as ours, everyone is at the table. As has often been said, government works only when it works for all. That theme must therefore be central to our focus on any discussion of future reform. If the plan is simply to diminish the voice or representation of one tradition in order to facilitate or bolster the rise of another, such changes are doomed to fail.

It is good to see the Assembly functioning once again and commanding the ongoing support of unionists and nationalists. It is for us all to put our shoulder to the wheel and make it work for Northern Ireland. That will be achieved through delivery on bread-and-butter issues that matter to the public. Delivery is where our focus should be. Delivery will cement stability and progress. Only then should we advance proposals for reform.

On 19 October 2021, I stood in this place to lead a debate on a motion on reform. Everyone in the House voted for it. There was no Division, as the House agreed the motion. I stood then, after a period of collapse brought about by Sinn Féin, and I stand here now, talking about reform, after a period of collapse brought about by the DUP. Last time, I talked about a demoralised workforce, about the harm being caused to our services in Northern Ireland, about the harm being caused to carers — an issue that is very close to my heart — and about poverty. The same things are present today. Nothing has changed in the past number of years. We continue to fail the people of Northern Ireland because of the Assembly's persistent collapse.

How can we change that? We can do so by having sustainable government that cannot be collapsed by any party.

The Assembly and Executive Review Committee (AERC) in the previous mandate prioritised reforming designations and the appointment of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. Sadly, there was no real appetite among other parties to take action to remove the power to use their veto. Even after the Alliance motion was passed by the House, with no party voting against the motion, nothing was done to take forward the change needed to create sustainable government. The AERC collected all the information, but nothing was actioned because kicking the can down the road meant that the veto could remain.

We could have mitigated the risk of a single party pulling down the Assembly. We could have delivered change that would have protected the democratic institutions. In fact, I brought it up again at the first Committee for Procedures meeting, and it was confirmed that the legal changes that will be needed to make the reforms will have to be made by the co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement: the UK Government and the Irish Government. <BR/>If we are serious about these institutions, we need to act now to ensure that this does not happen again. We need to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland and step up for future generations to ensure that our hard-fought-for political peace process continues to enable Northern Ireland to reach its full potential. The Good Friday Agreement is a foundation of peace and progress. Our political structures should and will also be involved in that.

Alliance wants to see the removal of designations and to change cross-community voting, because the current system embeds division and creates instability. Why should my vote count differently from that of the rest of you in this Building? Why is my vote not the same as a nationalist or a unionist's vote? Why, in 2024, is my vote still different? Replacing parallel consent with weighted majority voting is an important change to reduce the significance and role of designations. It is in the Good Friday Agreement. Society has changed — it is more diverse and inclusive — but that is not reflected or respected in this House. You are only equal if you are nationalist or unionist. That is unfair, and the time to change is now.

In the 2021 census, we can see that the population is more diverse. Minority ethnic groups have increased in size, and the number of people living here who were born outside the UK and Ireland is up to around one in 15, which is the highest ever recorded. The number of those who are forced to identify as other — there are those of us who prefer to be called United Community — has increased between the 2011 census and the 2021 census. There is no justification for the continuation of the designations system.

Alliance also wants to see change in how the First Minister and deputy First Minister are nominated. We want to update how we nominate the First Minister and deputy First Minister in order to ensure the stability and sustainability of our institutions. We want to update, not wipe out, the 1998 Act, so that, if a party that is eligible to nominate a First Minister does not want to do so, the entitlement can be passed to the next-largest party. A party would be able to refuse the nomination without triggering a veto on Executive formation. That is consistent with the current position on the allocation of the other Executive Ministers under d'Hondt.

We in the Alliance Party are committed to stable and sustainable power-sharing that respects liberal, democratic principles and enables the development of a shared future, but, as stated by Professor Paul Dixon in his written submission to the AERC:

"this process will require 'political skills' and pragmatism in order to achieve a compromise that is deliverable and sustainable across the political parties."

I would love it if the motion had built into it that, if it passed, the Speaker could write to the co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement — the UK and Irish Governments — confirming that it is the will of the House that the designations system and the definition of cross-community voting be updated so that I am not left out of it again.

We must move forward to ensure an inclusive, fair and sustainable government —

Will the Member bring her remarks to a close?

— for Northern Ireland.

I congratulate the leader of the Opposition on his appointment, and I welcome him to his place here today.

We will not be party to a stunt that uses and abuses people's emotions about a sensitive issue.

"There has to be power-sharing ... they are the fundamentals to which we hold dear".

Those are not my words but those of the leader of the SDLP, Colum Eastwood. In the words of the leader of the SDLP, we must have a power-sharing Executive. Those comments stand in stark contrast to the motion. What has changed? Is this a U-turn policy from the SDLP? Is this the leader of the Opposition auditioning for a higher role in his party? Or is it a fact that the SDLP have been placed in opposition by the people of Northern Ireland?

Of course, there is no mention in the motion, or in the contributions made by SDLP Members so far, of the collapse of the institutions that his party presided over following the Belfast Agreement. There have been no comments whatsoever, but simply criticism of the Executive — an Executive that, for the past number of years, the SDLP —.

Will the Member give way?

Of course.

Do you agree with me that stop-start politics has been very damaging to public service delivery in Northern Ireland over the past 25 years and that we have to do something to change that?

The Member has an extra minute.

I agree with the Member that the politics of domination have been very damaging for relations in Northern Ireland. I agree with her that Northern Ireland only moves forward when all communities move forward together. The lesson of the past three years should be that the concerns of a major section of our society cannot be simply ignored and papered over. The only way in which we all move forward —.

Will the Member give way?

I will happily give way.

Does the Member accept that the feelings of the people who elected me — I was the first person to be elected to this House at the last election — have been papered over by the DUP? You stayed out of government and you do not accept my votes in this House. How can you marry up what you are saying to the actual facts?

The point that I was making to the Member is that the mandate that we were given was not simply just transferred to the DUP; we did not make up our mandate. We were given a mandate by the people of Northern Ireland to take the action that we took. I must remind the Member that it was not my party that brought about the settings and rules by which we operate currently. Her party and others in the Chamber campaigned for the Belfast Agreement, and these are its outworkings. We have managed to improve that through the St Andrews Agreement and other agreements. However, the way in which we operate is a result of the conditions set out before us.

I want to make some progress before I give way to anyone else. We have had two years with the leader of the Opposition in post and not a single policy settlement has been put forward here. He proposes to create a new Committee, to which he will, selflessly, appoint the Chairman. He has been so ready for Opposition in the past two years that his contribution has been to congratulate the Alliance Party's policy. When the provision for Opposition was introduced in the House, we were told that it was a new age for democracy. We were told that people would be held to account. Instead, we have an attempt to use the motion to create another office that they will fill. No meaningful proposals have been put forward here.

The lesson of the past three years must be that Northern Ireland will move forward when all communities move forward together. I encourage the leader of the Opposition, when he next brings a motion, to perhaps make it relevant to the people of Northern Ireland. Then, perhaps, at the next election, he will no longer be in the Opposition.

I support the motion. I am glad that it has been tabled and that the SDLP is joining the Alliance Party in our calls for reform of the institutions. I say that in all honesty and without sarcasm, because it is important that all parties get on board and not just have discussions and conversations about reform, but actually help to make it happen.

There is an elephant in the room, however, that has not been highlighted today. These institutions are as stable today as they were the day before the last collapse. The reason not just why Sinn Féin and the DUP are lacking in support for reform of the institutions but why others are not fully on board — I appreciate that UUP Members have said that they support the motion but are unsure about the entirety of the conversation — is the issue of power. The reason why people are so reluctant to give up the power of veto is control. If you are refusing to give up that power and to reform the veto over the establishment of these institutions, it is for one reason only: you want to use the threat of bringing down these institutions again.

We need to go beyond that type of politics in this day and age. We need to ensure that we have good governance and a respectful way of debating the issues that we do not all agree on. There is no one in the Chamber who believes that they can get everything that they want at all times. In bringing down the institutions, we see people acting like they should get everything that they want. However, they know that, in any negotiation, the outcome will never be totally on your side. Alliance respects that, and we have been calling for reform since 2004. In June 2022, we published our proposals and put them forward to the UK and Irish Governments, stating that we are willing to have these conversations and to talk about cross-community voting and designations, because, as my colleague has just outlined, the votes of the people who voted for the Alliance Party are not counted in any cross-community vote. We need to ensure that we can move past that, but it is not just about words; it is about action.

The Member who spoke before me — I speak through you, Principal Deputy Speaker — highlighted the Belfast Agreement, which many Members in the Chamber support. I am proud to say that we still support the Belfast Agreement, but, at the time it was published, it contained safeguards so that it could be changed and updated, because time moves on. We all have our political priorities, but we cannot push forward our political priorities without the threat and the shadow in the background of bringing down these institutions.

We wanted the motion to be a bit more specific, and we did attempt to table an amendment. However, perhaps we understand why the SDLP has not been specific, and I understand that the leader of the Opposition will address some more issues in his winding-up speech. I would like to hear from the SDLP if it will also get on board with the Alliance proposals to remove the system of designations, because that is particularly important.

We have already discussed that issue in public. Each and every one of us, when canvassing doors right across Northern Ireland, will have been met with the conversation about reform. We know that people support it and that people can get on board, so I say to the DUP and Sinn Féin: do not be afraid of what reform could mean. I know that you may be afraid of losing your power and control, but it is more important to move this place forward and have an Assembly and Executive that can actually deliver for everyone.

Since this place has returned, we have discussed and debated several issues that are central to people's lives in every part of Northern Ireland. We have promised to work together on childcare, we have pledged to end violence against women and girls and we have called for action on the environmental catastrophe, yet, while debating each of those issues — I agree with the Member for North Belfast — there has been a huge elephant in the room, which is that, at any moment, one of the biggest parties in the Assembly could, once again, exercise a veto on the progress that they claim to support. That nuclear veto, which we are discussing today, and its repeated deployment in the past 10 years has eroded public confidence in our politics, left public services in crisis and forced workers out into the cold to demand fair pay. That is a veto that we should all resolve to remove from our politics for good. After a decade of dysfunction, it is time to change.

As we debate that veto today, those of us in favour of reform should be comforted by the support for the idea of reform. A huge majority of the public get that the veto just has to go. In polling, a majority in every age group gets that it has to go, and that is no surprise. Those people can see all around them the consequences of that and the dysfunction that the veto has incentivised. They see it in the health service collapsing in front of their eyes, in the generation of young people leaving our shores, in their pay packets that have reduced further and further in real terms and in their childcare costs that are just skyrocketing.

While the Government have sat back — or, too often, not sat at all — people have seen how their lives have, in many ways, been collateral damage of the deadlock. They have seen at first hand in their communities how a constant cycle of ransom politics just does not work. They see the same people lose trust and confidence in politics, and it is little wonder. They hear us talking about multi-year budgets, but they know that we are rarely here for multi years. They hear us talk about the Programme for Government, but they know that one has not been agreed since 2011. Their trust in politics has been pushed beyond breaking point on too many occasions to count. Indeed, a member of the public could be forgiven for thinking that such dysfunction actually suits parties that would rather say no than say yes and that are content to feed off tribalism and factionalism instead of standing over a record of government in delivery. The truth is that good government is not built by historic events, and trust is not won through symbolic handshakes. Good government is a process that demands us all to commit to consensus and compromise over years of crafting peace, the same years that simply have not —.

Will the Member give way?

Yes, of course.

Does the Minister agree that it is both telling and disappointing that —.

A Member:

Has she had a promotion?

Does the Member agree that it is both telling and disappointing that not only would neither the First Minister nor deputy First Minister promise not to collapse the institutions again but neither would come here to respond to the debate?

The Member has an extra minute.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I suppose that, really, that says it all.

I understand that a veto is a really hard thing to give up, but the two biggest parties have told us that they are about delivery. The single biggest message that the First Minister and deputy First Minister could send, if they are really committed to delivering for people here, is to put down that veto and accept that no one should be able to exercise it again. That would be to act in the spirit of the agreement and our peace process. Without that, how can people believe them this time, when this place has collapsed so easily before? If they do not have that commitment to write it down in the Programme for Government, people will know what conclusion to draw.

Finally, I have heard people say that entering into any process of reform runs contrary to the Good Friday Agreement. I fundamentally disagree with that. I am profoundly grateful for the success of the Good Friday Agreement. I will never take for granted that agreement or the men and women who made it happen. They are the builders and the giants whom we all follow, but the truth is that to review the agreement's outworkings is to fulfil the very spirit of that agreement and stay true to the original intention of those builders. Change was always expected and, indeed, intended. To reform and review is to believe no less strongly in the agreement and peace process. In fact, it is the same agreement as that which provides for reform and expects and demands those who carry out the responsibility of preserving it to ensure that it works for the next generation. That generation deserves stability in its Government and hope for the future. The only way in which to guarantee that hope is to recommit to that agreement and reform the institution so that no one can ever pull it down again.

When I was elected as an MLA, my first act in the Chamber was to sign the register and designate as United Community. It has always been strange to me that we were lumped into the Other group: we are not other; we are so much more than that. Then, I took my seat, and we tried to elect a Speaker. We could not. The cross-community votes of my cross-community party did not count in that. I spent the next two years being an MLA but being unable to legislate because one party has the power to bring everything down. My experience as an MLA has been severely hindered by flaws in the system. We need to change that.

I welcome the motion. It is important that we have this discussion today. I will focus my comments specifically on designation, which I would have liked to see referenced in the motion. The urgent need to change it is a case that Alliance has been making for many years. The Good Friday Agreement is precious, but it was designed to be a living document; to be the beginning rather than the end of a process. Not to move forward and not to change is dangerous and damaging to the vision of the Good Friday Agreement. Society has changed dramatically since 1998. The number of Alliance MLAs on these Benches is testament to that. We are all given the label of "Other", but we are many things. I am Zimbabwean, my mother is South African, my father is Irish, and my children have Irish and British passports; I have them. Our identities are complex, and they should not be barriers to be overcome. They are the stuff of pluralism and vibrancy, and they are something to celebrate and respect. The process of designation, when MLAs sign into the Assembly, is unnecessary. It embeds division and is part of what makes our institutions so unstable.

When we are asked in the Chamber to vote on a cross-community basis, our votes, on these Benches, are treated differently. My colleague Kellie Armstrong is particularly passionate about that and far more articulate on the subject than I am. Not to have the same weight on a range of votes — including on the election of a Speaker, changes to Standing Orders, and approvals to the Budget — is quite frankly untenable and demeaning to me and my colleagues. As Kellie pointed out, if that was the case in any other area or aspect of someone's identity, it would be discrimination. Our society has changed, and our institutions must reflect that.

The values of mutual respect, equality and partnership are infused in the Good Friday Agreement, and they should remain the driving forces of our politics. To fulfil those values, however, we cannot stand still. We must modify and update the functions of these institutions. Cross-community voting continues to treat cross-community parties as less than those who are nationalist or unionist. The continued use of designation is no longer tenable, and it has been untenable for some time.

I thank the Member for giving way. I agree with her, and I will talk in my winding-up speech about designation being something that we need to have a conversation about. Does she agree, though, that in the short term, given that there are things as well as designation, such as how North/South and east-west works, we should give urgent priority to removing the veto? It would be very good to get rid of that quickly. Some of those other things will take a little bit longer.

The Member has an extra minute.

I thank the leader of the Opposition. On the Alliance Party website, there is a document with proposals for reform, which we published in June 2022. It details our short- and medium-term changes in the line of reform. It is something that we feel very passionate about, and it should not be something that we just talk about. We have laid out how we would achieve it. Yes, I absolutely agree that there are different areas to focus on, and we should discuss how those should progress.

The final point that I want to make is that Members from the DUP said that we should be discussing things that are relevant to Northern Ireland. I think that this is so relevant: the fact that we have had no Assembly; that we can just collapse it and have no Ministers in place to make local decisions for local people or to look at budgets or have no Committees scrutinising and able to ask questions. The impact that it has is huge, and that is not just on delivery. It has a psychological impact as well. People see a failed Assembly, and they feel like this place has failed, but it has not. This is a brilliant place to live. Our people are brilliant, and there are wonderful opportunities. We are talented and creative, and we should be celebrating everything that is good. The ability to collapse everything — the failure within the structure — needs to be addressed and is very relevant to the House. We will support the motion and will continue, as the Alliance Party, to do everything that we can to progress reform.

Since I first came to the House, I have repeatedly pointed out the unworkability of mandatory coalition. Every time I did, the most ardent defenders of Belfast Agreement devolution were from the SDLP. It was the holy grail; it could not be touched; it was perfect; it was the ideal for us all. Those who dared to question it were some sort of outcast from the past. Yet here we are today and, lo and behold, the SDLP calls for change. Mind you, the motivation is very suspect, because, so long as the mechanisms of mandatory coalition were about protecting the interests of nationalism as the minority, those mechanisms were, indeed, the holy grail. However, the moment that nationalism is in the ascendancy in the House and it might be unionists who need whatever protection there is, forget about it. The call has been, "Let's have reform. Let's have change". The motivation is very suspect indeed.

We heard from Mr O'Toole about his worry that the institutions might collapse again. Mr O'Toole, do not worry about those in the DUP leadership. They have been captured. They are now protocol implementers and acceptors of the Irish Sea border and of the fact that we are governed by foreign laws that we do not make and cannot change. Do not get too concerned about whether the DUP will ever rediscover its principles. Under the current leadership, you can rest assured that there is no chance of that.

You might, if it bothered you, be more worried about Sinn Féin because, for its leadership, it is not about making Northern Ireland work. It is about having a stepping stone and getting within touching distance of its goal. It is quite clear from some recent Sinn Féin declarations that, as soon as it arrives there, Stormont is over — it is gone.

I reassure you, Mr O'Toole, that, from my knowledge of what I observe from these Benches, in the main, the happy band of the DUP will not rediscover its principles or pull down the protocol-implementing institutions. My goodness, you have only to look at the glee and delight of the deputy First Minister as she troops around the publicity stunts with the First Minister as her unelected lady-in-waiting. Be assured that the DUP, having enthroned Sinn Féin, is very unlikely to return to the principles that, rightly, took it out of the House two years ago and the dispensing of which, shamefully, brought it back in a month ago.

I fear that your concerns in that regard are misplaced, Mr O'Toole, but if you have any concerns about when Sinn Féin reach the point of saying, "Mission accomplished" and therefore the end of any role for this institution — you probably do not have such concerns and nor does your sister nationalist party, Alliance — you probably have reason for them. You probably do not, however, because you are all, of course, on the same trajectory with the protocol and its implementers.

It is fitting that the Executive parties and the former Executive parties start by offering public-sector workers an apology for cutting their pay for over two decades. All those who have been in government at some point — that is, Sinn Féin, the DUP, Alliance, the UUP and the SDLP — should be sorry for the destruction of our public services, which have been underfunded, understaffed and under-resourced by successive Administrations.

When I was younger, my ma told me that if you are sorry for something, you do not do it again. It means that you have learned a lesson from the past and are ready to do better in the future. Four weeks into the new Assembly, the Administration are set to do the same disastrous deeds all over again and again.

If parties were truly sorry for cutting public-sector pay, the first thing that they would do would be to give public-sector workers a real pay rise. Instead, the Assembly ran through a Budget Bill that guarantees those workers only a 5% rise, which is a cut in real terms, considering the rate of inflation. That is not to mention the spate of budget cuts and attacks on public services that will come down the line. Whatever today's outcome, we need to be clear that, if Executive parties do not begin to address those issues, they are not sorry at all for the harm that is being done to our communities and services. Like many previous motions in the Assembly, this one will simply be for the optics. They are ruling by fooling once more.

People Before Profit was one of the strongest and most vocal critics of the DUP's boycott of the Assembly, which was self-serving and wrought untold misery on people across the North. However, today's motion about reform of the Assembly fails to address the real elephant in the room: that these institutions, built and run on the basis of communal designation and division, will always be prone to instability. When the Good Friday Agreement was signed, a critical minority warned that it would effectively institutionalise sectarianism, and that is exactly what has happened. The DUP, when it collapsed the Assembly, was simply exercising its veto on power-sharing as enshrined in Stormont's sectarian institutions.

People Before Profit attempted to amend today's motion by calling for the doing away with of communal designations and the removal of the sectarian mechanisms that allow for day-to-day vetoes of Stormont's business. As we see it, the communal veto is not just about collapsing the Assembly but is a sectarian mechanism that has been used to deny democratic rights time and time again. We have seen it used under the guise of the petition of concern to thwart things like same-sex marriage, reproductive rights and Irish-language legislation. It is to the eternal shame of the Assembly that the Tories, under pressure from popular mass movements, were forced to legislate for those demands where Stormont had failed.

A system that mandates parties to designate as unionist, nationalist or other assumes that there are and always will be separate communities here and that those communities should elect the leaders to represent their supposedly separate interests. I am not an other. I am a socialist, and I was elected on that ticket. It is a disgrace to the House that me and others are designated offensively as "other". Not only does that approach copper-fasten sectarianism outside these institutions but it is based on an illusion. While the unionist and nationalist establishment parties here seem opposed in principle, they are always united when it comes to cutting workers' pay, impoverishing our communities and stoking communal segregation.

Even if the motion passes, it will not begin to cure the sectarian rot at the heart of the Northern state. The cure lies in working-class unity. It is that unity, seen amongst striking public-sector workers, that forced the Assembly back to business. It is that unity that will uplift our communities. It is that unity that will overcome communal division as people — Catholic, Protestant, none, migrant — finally stand up to Stormont together. The contrived unity on offer in the motion will not cut it, because it is an attempt at unity imposed from above. Real unity and real change will either come from outside these institutions or not at all. Working-class communities must start by opposing the pay cut offered to public-sector workers and the punishing revenue-raising measures that the Executive want to impose.

I call Matthew O'Toole to wind on the motion. Matthew, you have 10 minutes. If you take an intervention, you will not be given any extra time.

Thank you very much for that warning, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

First, I thank all the Members who have participated in the debate. It was a wide-ranging debate, and I will touch on as many key points as I can. People will not be surprised by anything they heard from any side of the Chamber. I welcome the fact that at least two parties support what we are trying to do. I am not entirely clear where Sinn Féin is on it, and I am clear where the DUP is. I will attempt to address some of the points that were raised. I am genuinely disappointed that the First Minister and deputy First Minister are not here to respond. Indeed, there is no Minister here to respond to the debate. I think that that is an insult to the Chamber, bluntly. It is suboptimal at best, and I do not think that it reflects the seriousness of the issue or the gravity with which the people of Northern Ireland view it.

We are clear that the purpose of today's motion is not about assigning blame or having a fight over what happened in the past, but, since Members raised issues that happened in the past, I will touch on a couple of those, purely to draw reflections on them. Our motions today are about positive, constructive momentum behind reforming the institutions, not to remove the pluralist or power-sharing principles behind them but to allow us to simply have a Government. What is so unacceptable about that? Why is veto necessary? Why is it necessary for people to have their identity protected to abolish — to be able to take away — not just the principle of government but the operation of government?

I will go through a few of the comments that were made in the debate. Deirdre Hargey seemed to be in sympathy with some of the motion but focused on the regressive austerity imposed by the Tory Government. That is exactly right, and Deirdre would know, because she was Communities Minister and had to deal with a lot of that when she was in office, but what about the three years before that when there was no Communities Minister to deal with the aggressive austerity being foisted on the people of the North by a Tory Government and an austerity-obsessed Westminster? One cannot, on the one hand, argue that aggressive austerity from Tory Ministers has left our communities in a terrible place and then, on the other hand, say that we need to retain the right to collapse government and give them the power to do what they like. The power that we have at a devolved level is limited, both because of the mandatory coalition system and because Westminster holds all the power. Deirdre, her party and I agree that we need to change that in the long term and that we need a new constitutional set-up, but, while we have the one that we have at the minute, it is not defensible for us simply to say, "Well, we should be able to collapse the institutions".

Jonathan Buckley's former party leader — I do not know whether he was involved in the defenestration of that particular former party leader — famously said:

"It is good to have a bit of fun in the Assembly." — [Official Report (Hansard), Bound Volume 130, p148, col 1].

That is what Jonny was doing when he made a series of bizarre claims that John Hume and Seamus Mallon would not be in sympathy with reform of the institutions. John Hume and Seamus Mallon helped create the institutions, along with David Trimble, John Alderdice, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Yes, the SDLP was intimately and proudly involved in the creation of the institutions. It wanted the institutions to function. It wanted us to be here, to work and to spill our sweat and not our blood. I will therefore take no lessons or preposterous, pathetic slurs from DUP MLAs about what John Hume and Seamus Mallon might have thought about our changing the rules, to be quite honest with you.

Jonny also said that the SDLP was forced into this position by the electorate. I have had to clarify a few times that I am not denying the outcome of the 2022 election. We did not get enough seats to qualify under d'Hondt for a Ministry. Unlike others, and this includes the Member's party, we accept the outcome of elections. We are here in opposition because that is the role that we have after the election. There is no denying that, and there is no cavilling about that from me, and we intend to do it robustly and constructively, no matter what slurs come from different sides of the Chamber.

Paula Bradshaw gave a thoughtful assessment. I am a bit of a geek, although I am not quite geeky enough to have read a 20-year old document. I may pinch a copy of if afterwards, however. I will come on to touching on a couple of other comments made by other Alliance MLAs in order to give some balance.

Doug Beattie is right when he talks about the fact that things were different in 1998. A lot of the institutional issues that we have were created in the context of a society that was emerging from a violent conflict. Before that violent conflict, we had a system of government that was genuinely based on excluding one entire community.

Harry Harvey mentioned the principle of consent. With respect to Mr Harvey, the absurd conflation of consent with perfect consensus has been a hallmark of DUP arguments for the past lock of years, as people say in the countryside. I do not consent permanently to Northern Ireland's being in the UK, nor will you — through the Chair — if there is ever a referendum on a new Ireland, and I hope that there will be consent for its happening. That does not mean that you do not give consent to the institutions that exist to work through democracy. Nor does it mean that everything in the Chamber has to have perfect cross-community consent. It was not designed in that way, and it was never supposed to work in that way. With respect, again, there was a slightly preposterous reference to John Hume, with which I have already dealt.

Kellie Armstrong talked about reform and said that the AERC is kicking the can down the road. That is one reason that we do not accept the idea that the Assembly and Executive Review Committee is the best place in which for the discussion to happen, because it has a record of being — for fans of Charles Dickens — like the famous Court of Chancery case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce, where the court sat for years and never reached a resolution. We need to have a resolution, and we need to have momentum. There are a couple of common threads through the Alliance contributions, and I will address the designation point a little bit later.

The Member for North Belfast Mr Brett called the motion a "stunt". Mr Brett, as always, for a rather new MLA, is a very persuasive and passionate speaker, and, indeed, one who is able to pull off quite remarkably brazen lines like that, given some of what the DUP has pulled over the past number of years. He said that there have been electoral issues for the SDLP. I am tempted to say this: no blank, Sherlock, we know. We are doing our job in opposition, we are proud to be doing it and we are going to keep doing it no matter what slurs come from different parts of the Chamber.

I thank the Member for giving way. Will he agree with me that every single DUP Member who participated in the debate has contradicted the manifesto on which they stood for election to the House? On page 41, it states:

"We remain convinced that a voluntary coalition represents the best long-term option for Government in Northern Ireland. We believe this should be on the basis of a concise agreed coalition plan that can subsequently be augmented by a more comprehensive Programme for Government and supported by a weighted majority in the Assembly."

Speech.

Excuse me.

The DUP has advocated reform.

The Member has been generous —

[Interruption.]

Shh!

— and I think that his point has been made.

Nuala McAllister and Kate Nicholl both touched on the question of designation. The motion does not mention designation because we should prioritise up front. That is why the third motion that we will debate today is focused on the establishment of an Ac Hoc Committee to get consensus and agreement on the question of the removal of the veto. It is really important that we try to keep up the momentum to take that one toxic ingredient out of the mix here. Once we do that, we can do a lot afterwards. That is why this first motion talks about the broader reform of the Programme for Government, which could certainly include designation.

I understand, particularly now that there is increased Alliance representation in the Chamber, some of the frustration around voting. We are up for that debate. It is important to say that I do not agree that designation in 1998 was the root of all evil. We need to be honest about where we were in 1998, but that is not to say that we cannot look at it now. We all have rich identities. For what it is worth, I designate as a nationalist and a social democrat. My party is a proud member of the Party of European Socialists. There is a lot more to me than simply my constitutional view — proud and passionate though I am about it. Our identities are all complex, and we need to recognise that. The binary definition does not apply simply to those who designate as other, although I respect the argument that was made.

I come back to the point that was made again and again, including by Mr Allister, about the SDLP talking about changing the Good Friday Agreement. From the very beginning, we have talked about improving and changing, where necessary, the Good Friday Agreement. What we have been opposed to has been the hacking at the principles of power-sharing, including the St Andrews Agreement —.

A Member:

Will the Member give way?

I am afraid that I do not have time to give way. I would normally, but I will not get an extra minute, so I will not give way. You will, hopefully, have time to speak in the second debate on reform.

We have been opposed to hacking away at the principles of power-sharing, pluralism and partnership. Of course, Mr Allister has been delighted to hack away at that and object to it. That is fine; that is his outlook, as they say. Although he is a talented polemicist, I do not go along with the somewhat vulgar and faintly misogynistic depictions of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. That is not appropriate.

We have an opportunity today to do something very important, which is to build a consensus around partnership and working together. It is ironic that the constructive Opposition have to encourage the Government to stay together and do a job for the people, but that is where we find ourselves. I very much thank everyone who participated. Let us make this place work. I commend the motion once again to the Assembly.

I thank the Member for bringing his remarks to a close.

Question put.

Some Members:

Aye.

Some Members:

No.

Question put a second time.

Some Members:

Aye.

Some Members:

No.

OK, so —.

Aye.

OK. I heard you, Matthew. Question Time begins at 2:00 pm. Rather than doing the Division now — it is clear that we need one — we are going to do it directly after the question for urgent oral answer, when the Speaker will do it. Members should take their ease until Question Time at 2:00 pm.

The debate stood suspended.

(Mr Speaker in the Chair)