Order Paper

1.   Prayers

2.   Members’ Statements

3.   Executive Committee Business

Motion: The draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024

Proposed:

That the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2024 be approved.

Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs

4.   Question Time

4.1     Communities

5.   Committee Business

Motion: New Standing Order

Proposed:

After Standing Order 59 insert: -

59A. Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee

(1)     This order supplements section 56B and Schedule 6B to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

(2)     There shall be a standing committee of the Assembly to be known as the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee (‘the committee’) to assist with the observation and implementation of Articles 13(3a) and (4) of the Windsor Framework.

(3)     The committee shall exercise the functions set out in Schedule 6B to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

(4)     The committee may exercise the power in section 44(1) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, read with paragraph 5(2) of Schedule 6B to that Act.

(5)     Membership of the committee shall be determined in accordance with Standing Order 52.

(6)     Each member of the committee (‘M’) may appoint as a substitute a person who is—

(a)    a member of the same political party as M;

(b)    a member of the Assembly;

(c)    not a member of the committee; and

(d)    not a substitute for any other member of the committee.

(7)     A substitute may attend any meeting of the committee from which M is absent.

(8)     A substitute may participate in the proceedings of the committee as though the substitute were a member of the committee.

(9)     If the chairperson is absent, the committee shall be chaired by the deputy chairperson. 

(10)  If both the chairperson and the deputy chairperson are absent, the committee shall be chaired by the oldest member present at the meeting who is not a substitute.

(11)  In this Standing Order, ‘Windsor Framework’ has the same meaning as in paragraph 1(6) of Schedule 6B to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

Chairperson, Committee on Procedures

6.   Private Members’ Business

Motion: Delays to Flagship Maternity and Children’s Hospital Project

Proposed:

That this Assembly deplores the lack of progress, and action, towards transforming our health service since the restoration of the Executive; believes it is unacceptable, given that the Department of Health accounts for over half of all day-to-day spend from the public purse, that people across Northern Ireland have experienced little practical benefit, with hundreds of thousands languishing on waiting lists or struggling to access timely health and social care; points out that the recent draft framework for the reconfiguration of hospitals lacks detail, as well as concrete plans for reform; is concerned that the flagship Maternity and Children’s Hospital project has been beset by unprecedented delays and eye-watering costs, driven largely by the contamination of water systems on the Royal Victoria site; expresses alarm that the Children’s Hospital, in particular, will not be operational before 2030, ten years later than anticipated; and calls on the Minister of Health to ensure these failings cannot be repeated by commissioning a full and independent inquiry into the handling of the Maternity and Children’s Hospital project to date, including the handover of the Maternity Hospital to Belfast Health and Social Care Trust in March 2024.

Mrs Diane Dodds
Mr Alan Robinson
Mr Phillip Brett

7.   Adjournment

• Pressures in the Fishing Industry in Ardglass

Mrs Cathy Mason