Heated on-air exchange between Doug Beattie and William Crawley after UUP split over going into government – and choice of health minister criticised

It has emerged that the party was split over whether or not to go back into Stormont.

Meanwhile UUP MLA Andy Allen has criticised the decision to make Robin Swann the new health minister, given that Mr Swann wants to be elected to Westminster in the pending general election (which could come anytime between now and next January).

All this comes after Mr Beattie chose on Saturday to lead his party back into government as part of a Sinn Fein-DUP-Alliance-UUP coalition, consisting of five Sinn Fein ministers, four DUP ones, two Alliance, and one from the UUP (the SDLP were too small to warrant being given a ministry).

UUP health minister Robin Swann is currently the MLA for North Antrim who had previously served as health minister from January 2020 to November 2022.

But he has also been selected to fight the general election for the UUP in South Antrim.

His appointment prompted East Belfast MLA Mr Allen to tweet out a clip of Ulster University academic Deirdre Heenan, in which she strongly criticised the move.

In that clip, she said that despite Sinn Fein and the DUP both stressing the importance of the NHS, they have handed it to the UUP – "a party that will have to fight to have their voice heard, a party that will not have the power to make change".

And given Mr Swann’s ambition to become an MP, she questioned whether the UUP was just using his position as health minister as a "platform" for him to reach this ultimate objective.

"It would be unforgivable if our health service were being used in such a way," tweeted out Mr Allen, adding: "We need a health minister with their full focus on the task at hand, not one eye on Westminster."

Mr Beattie was then quizzed about all this by William Crawley on BBC's TalkBack show today.

"We are the smallest party in the Executive," said Mr Beattie.

"Now, I could have put somebody in who didn't know the brief and spent a month getting them up to speed with what's going on.

"Or I could pick Robin Swann, who knew the brief, with his SPAD, and could hit the ground running. That's why Robin Swann was chosen."

He went on to acknowledge that some in the party wanted to be outside government, alongside the SDLP.

"There were members of our party who thought we needed go into opposition," said Mr Beattie.

"Andy was one of those people. He was very strong in his arguments. But he didn't get what he wanted and we went into government. I feel that emotion, passion, frustration, pressure, probably overspilled into a tweet.

"He's a colleague, he's a friend. He speaks openly and wears his heart on his sleeve.

"There's nothing to see here, if I'm really honest with you."

Mr Crawley put it to Doug Beattie that the UUP deputy leader Robbie Butler is "deeply unhappy" because he thought he would get the education ministry.

"I don't recognise that," said Mr Beattie.

"But I guess there's lots of people who commentate and give opinions.

"The reality is that I'm the leader and make the decisions... right up until the last minute I didn't know we were going to end up with health.

"I had no idea. I thought it was going to be something other than health."

He also said Robin Swann may be de-selected as the party’s South Antrim MP candidate.

The discussion then devolved into a spiky back-and-forth with Mr Crawley, whom Mr Beattie accused of interrupting his answers.

WC: "You're now thinking of not running him as your Westminster…

DB: "William. William – stop. Because every time I'm trying to answer you here, you're jumping in with a different question and I'm trying to be open. I'm trying to be honest with you, and you're trying to spin something that's not there..."

– Talking over one another –

DB: "Hile on! No!"

WC: "Doug you're sounding awfully rattled here, I have to say."

DB: "Do you know why I'm sounding rattled William?"

WC: "I'm being very polite. I'm asking you reasonable questions... I have no idea why you're behaving like this."

DB: "Well, I tell you why William. So you have asked me a question. I was going to answer it. You interrupted. I went to answer again. You interrupted. I went to answer again. You interrupted. Three times you interrupted, my friend... If you want me to answer a question, please, please, just let me answer the question."

WC: "Which question would you like to answer?"

DB: "Goodness knows. I don't even know what question we're on now."