The letter which caused Paula Bradshaw to cut a Stormont live feed accused her of ‘contempt’ for TUV's Gaston
A letter which sparked bizarre scenes in Stormont this week in which a scrutiny committee chair instructed an official to cut the cameras when an MLA attempted to raise it – has been seen by the News Letter.
The correspondence from a member of the public to Stormont’s Executive Office committee raised questions over committee chair Paula Bradshaw’s handling of an evidence session by the First Minister and accuses her of disrespecting the mandate of North Antrim MLA Timothy Gaston.
Tensions between the Alliance and TUV MLAs have been simmering for weeks, with Ms Bradshaw objecting to Mr Gaston questioning witnesses rather than listening to their “lived experience” and reprimanding him for raising social media posts by another witness giving evidence to the body.
This week, Mr Gaston said a precedent had been set by the Chair the previous week when she raised correspondence relating to his questioning of a witness.
He then proceeded to do likewise and referenced a letter of complaint about the chair.
Paula Bradshaw interjected to say “Can we put this in private session because I’m going to stop you right there”. At this point an official rose to hit a switch on the wall which cut the live feed. The last few seconds of broadcast footage show the chair staring intently at Mr Gaston.
The News Letter has seen a copy of the letter which sparked the incident – and is now being handled by the Assembly’s Standards Commissioner.
It complains that Ms Bradshaw “facilitated the First Minister in answering a question addressed specifically to Junior Minister Reilly which it was impossible for the First Minister to answer”.
The letter from Mr George F.D. Young said the Alliance politician had facilitated in “shielding Junior Minister Reilly” from a question which was clearly in the public interest. It said that “even when it came to the questions he did get to ask the chair actively encouraged at least one not to be answered and demanded that Mr Gaston ‘move on’ when the second clearly hadn’t been answered either” – claiming that “Ms Bradshaw’s approach to Mr Gaston is motivated by barely disguised contempt for his political opinion”.