Alliance to back motion of no confidence in education minister Paul Givan

The party’s deputy leader confirmed the position on Monday afternoon, after days of speculation about whether the party would back a call seeking Paul Givan’s resignation.

A motion of no confidence would require cross- community support to pass, which it will not receive given the DUP’s defence of its minister – and opposition to the People Before Profit motion from the Ulster Unionist Party and the TUV.

It is understood that the party will not sign the petition itself, which already has the required number of signatures from nationalists and others in the chamber.

However, it will vote for the subsequent motion of no confidence.

Speaking to the media at Stormont on Monday, the Alliance Party’s deputy leader Eóin Tennyson confirmed his party would support a motion of no confidence.

He said the visit “at such a politically sensitive time is nothing more than provocative coat trailing”.

The Upper Bann MLA said that minister Paul Givan “needs to account for his judgement as to why he was part of a propaganda mission for the Israeli government”.

The ongoing row started over a recent visit to Israel by the DUP minister, and whether departmental resources should have been used to promote a visit he made to a school in Jerusalem.

A petition was brought to the Assembly by West Belfast MLA Gerry Carroll. It subsequently received the endorsement of Sinn Fein and the SDLP, and is likely to result in vote in the Assembly, possibly next week.

Mr Givan insists he is a minister for all in Northern Ireland. Speaking to the BBC’s Nolan Show on Monday morning, he said the school he visited had teachers and pupils from an Arab background, a Jewish background and a Christian background.

“It was an integrated school that I went to. And yet we have this outrage that I had went and visited a school and reflected that through the department.

“I think people see through that, and I think it's purely because I went to Israel”, he said.