To ask the Minister of Justice to outline the policy goals that she has been unable to progress through the Executive since the Assembly was restored in 2024.

Mrs Long

I have been unable to progress an increase in the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) despite considerable support for that in a public consultation. That would bring Northern Ireland in line with the international standards, including directives from the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child. At 10 years of age, our current minimum is the lowest in Europe along with England and Wales. I shared a paper with Executive colleagues that highlighted strong public support for an increase — 83·5% of respondents — and it was clear from the limited number of responses that I received that there continues to be insufficient support to enable the necessary legislative change to be progressed. That is why it was not included in the Justice Bill: I did not want to hold up its introduction through a lack of agreement on content. I am fully supportive of removing the defence of reasonable chastisement from the law here as the effects of physical punishment of children are consistently associated with a wide variety of negative health and developmental consequences for children. As any such amendment will require Executive agreement, which, again, has not been forthcoming, I circulated a draft Executive paper in October 2024, but, despite my efforts, I was not able to secure Executive agreement to deliver change in the law in the current Justice Bill. I will continue to work with ministerial colleagues to seek their approval to repeal the defence of reasonable chastisement and move towards a position of equal protection for children in Northern Ireland. In a draft paper to Executive colleagues in November 2025, I sought agreement on the drafting and inclusion of vagrancy repeal provisions in the Justice Bill. That too was unsuccessful, so it has been paused to allow for further consideration. Finally, I sought the agreement of colleagues to include "transgender" in the list of protected groups under the hate crime provisions in the sentencing Bill. Regrettably, there has been a lack of consensus on that measure, so I have had to remove "transgender" from the list of protected groups identified in the Bill. I will proceed to seek Executive agreement to introduce the Bill with that omitted.

Mrs Long

In seeking to raise MACR, we are not saying that children's offending behaviour should be ignored or that they should get away with it. Changes would need to be accompanied by the development of new arrangements to identify the underlying causes of concerning behaviour in younger children and to provide support, guidance and help to those children and their families. Often, children who display challenging behaviour have themselves been victims or experienced multiple levels of adversity and trauma and have multiple unmet needs. Some have been groomed, some have been coerced and some have been exploited. We know, however, that the provision of targeted support to address the underlying issues at the earliest opportunity is an effective way of addressing offending behaviour, reducing the number of future victims and preventing lives being blighted by a criminal record. Currently, if there is concern over a child's offending behaviour, they can be referred to multi-agency panels called children's diversion forums. Those or similar partnerships could be considered as a model to work with under the new age of criminal responsibility if we increase the minimum age. That would reinforce the message that young children who offend need help and support to desist.

Mr O'Toole

Minister, our party agrees with you about many of the issues that you have raised, and we want to work with you on them. However, it is clear that, before you took office — an office that, in effect, you and your party campaigned for you to have before the Executive were restored — you were on the record about the track record of your Executive partners. Why, then, did you not seek explicit guarantees in writing before you went into the Executive about what you could deliver as Justice Minister? To be clear, that would not have prevented an Executive being formed, so it is an entirely different position from that of the First Minister and deputy First Minister's parties. Why did you go in without those guarantees, and is it not a bit rich to complain about it now?

Mrs Long

I find it a bit rich that the Member whose party sat in the Executive for many years and never had any written guarantees about anything now holds others to a different standard of accountability. He says that we campaigned for me to be Justice Minister, but let us be clear: the reason that I stand here as Justice Minister — I am under no illusions about this — is that nobody else could get the required cross-community support to do the job.

Mr O'Toole

We were blocked from it.

Mrs Long

No one is blocked from doing the job.

Mr O'Toole

Nationalists are.

Mrs Long

You need to get cross-community support. Perhaps, if you engaged more constructively with your unionist colleagues, you might get it.

Mr Buckley

It is not often that I agree with the Justice Minister, but I certainly do on that. [Laughter.]

Mrs Long

I will enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Mr Buckley

It is a new dawn. Minister, you commented earlier on young children who offend and the difficult circumstances that sometimes lead to that offending and, often, reoffending. You will know that our teachers often face the brunt of that when it comes to behaviour in classrooms that can affect them and, indeed, other children. Have you had any proactive conversations with your ministerial colleagues, particularly the Education Minister, about how teachers can share their experiences and hope for better outcomes?

Mrs Long

MACR was consulted on in the previous mandate, and we had positive responses from those who work with young people. I wrote to all Executive colleagues about the plans that we had. We responded, for example, to concerns about serious offending such as rape, serious sexual offences and murder and were willing to consider derogations in those exceptional cases, given their low number. We already have a positive working relationship with the Department of Education through the diversion forums and other panels in order to deliver the best outcomes for young people. It is important that everybody is part of the conversation. We had said that we would review MACR after a period so that, if it was not successful, we could look at it again. If other European countries can effectively manage young people, divert them from criminal behaviour and give them a better start in life, I see no good reason, with the quality of our education system, the quality of our youth justice system and the quality of our health and social services, why we cannot do likewise.