Stormont chaos means Speaker Robin Newton keeps his £87,000 salary

If Monday’s sitting of the Assembly had gone ahead the first item of business would have to have been the election of a new speaker – even if the Assembly could not agree on forming an Executive.

But the decision of the five big parties to agree to cancel the sitting means that Mr Newton remains in post.

The Assembly has confirmed that the East Belfast MLA will continue to be paid his £87,000 a year salary (which includes £48,000 for being an MLA) until he is replaced – even if that means that there are now months of political deadlock or another election.

In January’s penultimate Assembly sitting prior to the dissolution of the last Assembly, Mr Newton faced a vote of no confidence in which every party with the exception of his own, the DUP, was preparing to vote against him.

However, amid extraordinary scenes in the chamber, the debate did not proceed after Sinn Fein said that it was not going to formally move the motion against him and then the DUP’s Lord Morrow – who was acting as a temporary speaker because none of the deputy speakers would chair proceedings – ruled that the debate could not proceed.

Over the last six months Mr Newton has been the focus of several controversies involving Charter NI, his declaration of interests and then a chaotic sitting of the Assembly in December in which his authority was repeatedly and openly challenged by MLAs after he ruled that Arlene Foster could address the Assembly as first minister despite Martin McGuinness, the then deputy first minister, having withdrawn his consent for that to happen.