Move by Long to halt ‘RHI on steroids’ could have saved NI £406 million per year, MLAs told

That was the picture painted at a hearing of the NI justice committee yesterday, as it pored over the shock decision by Mrs Long to pause progress on her “domestic abuse” bill on Monday.

The bill aims to criminalise things like “emotional abuse” within relationships, and is designed to pick up on patterns of behaviour which fall outside the existing law governing violence and threats.

The bill has cross-party backing, although some legal figures have advised caution about some aspects of it, like criminalising non-violent behaviour (with the News Letter being the sole outlet to have covered these concerns).

Click here: Warning of pitfalls in abuse law — barristers advise caution over turning non-violent acts into crimes

Click here: New ‘domestic abuse’ law could criminalise family arguments warns top Northern Ireland barrister

Click here: PSNI warned not to over-step powers on domestic abuse after force indicates ‘giving someone the silent treatment’ is a criminal offence

Mrs Long had hoped to have the bill on the statute books by Christmas.

But in the Assembly on Monday she warned that civil servants have discovered a problem with one of the proposed amendments to the bill.

The amendment, which also had cross-party support, aimed to increase access to legal aid for people who allege domestic abuse in child contact cases (such as where divorced parents are arguing over access, for instance).

Naomi Long said the effects of that could be like “RHI on steroids” and froze the progress of the bill to prevent the amendment passing.

Then yesterday, her top civil servant laid out exactly the scale of potential costs.

Justice department permanent secretary Peter May said: “The current legal aid costs of Article 8 [child contact] proceedings in the family courts are around £8m per year,” he said.

Widening access to legal aid could push this Northern Ireland figure up to £14m.

But there was a further sting in the tail.

Mr May quoted from a London government policy, which says the budget of a devolved government (that is, the amount London sends to NI) “will be adjusted downwards to compensate for costs incurred by the UK government as a result of the actions of a devolved administration”.

And it was argued that, if a plaintiff took a human rights court case in GB arguing that legal aid access there should be equally generous as NI under Naomi Long’s new bill, the potential cost to the coffers of the UK “could be in the region of £400m per year”.

And because Northern Ireland would have created the conditions that allowed such a court case to happen, the London government could seek to pin the whole cost on the Province’s Department of Finance.

Mr May said: “Someone in GB could seek to rely on what we’ve done here, and to argue perhaps on human rights grounds that it was unfair and unreasonable that they were not able to have the same provision in GB.

“The repercussiveness, if you use crude population-based assumptions from that £14m, the figure could be in the region of £400m per year.”

Doug Beattie called the figure “staggering”, and Mrs Long agreed, saying that when it was brought to her attention it “rocked us all back on our heels”.

Ms Long told the committee that she will seek further legal advice.

For context, £400m would be more than a third of her entire department’s budget (of roughly £1.1bn), used to pay for police, probation and prisons.

She said: “It is imperative that we take time now to ensure whatever legislation is passed does not have unintended consequences.”

More from the News Letter:

Click here: Baptist Pastor explains why he opened his church for worship despite coronavirus restrictions

Click here: Counting cost of Covid curbs: 30,000 NI job losses by end of 2020 predicts top economist

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers — and consequently the revenue we receive — we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content.

Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Alistair Bushe

Editor