Correspondence with Gordon Dunne

I wrote to my MLA Gordon Dunne after his question in the Assembly this week. It is somewhat of a shock that I actually heard back so promptly, this is an MLA who has failed to answer me on a whole number of previous correspondence. I do not think I am breaching any confidence by publishing his full response:

"Your comments are noted!"

Yes there is an explanation mark at the end of his short reply so I am taking that to be a terse reply.

For the record here is the email I wrote to him.

Dear Gordon,
I was rather disappointed in your question during topical questions to OFMDFM yesterday.

Firstly the Equality Commission have to operate independently of political interference from any Executive Department or the Assembly as a whole, as they may have to make decisions on actions from within the Assembly. Therefore you were quite rightly told that this is the case.

On the matter of legal proceedings these have to be based on the law as it stands at the moment and the time of the incident in question. Proceedings cannot be halted while any Government is in the process of changing the law. 

But there is no Assembly Bill to change the law, there is a private member's bill which is at the consultation stage. Has yet to be assess for an equality audit under the conditions of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act or be voted on in the chamber.

I know that the history of consultation on matters that concern LGBT isn't great, the first on a sexual orientation strategy occurred in 2006 under direct rule and we are still waiting for the imminent publication of the actual strategy and action plan.

In hindsight, it might have helped if at some point in the last 8 years such a strategy and action plan had actually been published to supplement the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regualations (Northern Ireland) 2006. It may well have be able to help the Equality Commission to determine where the regulations stood on the expression of something promoting a topical political discussion and people of faith running a business for commercial purposes.

I have read the consultation document on the conscience clause with all its leading questions and narrative. I'm also rather shocked at how badly drafted it appears to be, relating commercial enterprise to regulation 16 which relates directly to religious bodies, rather than regulation 5 which relates to goods, facilities and services. I shall be making a formal response in due course.

However, I am wondering if the wording of your question is an indication of shift in DUP policy and practice. Is your party trying to stall members of the LGBT community seeking recourse through the courts by introducing legislation; claiming such governmental proceedings should have precedence over legal action?

As with my points above:

(a) legal proceedings should be free from political interference(b) legal proceedings must be based on present law, not hypothetical changes in future(c) legal proceedings must be timely and not subject to delays caused by drawn out legislative process.

Therefore I hope this is not the case of a DUP strategy. It is interference in legal proceedings and like the conscience clause is not about freedom of conscience but about the right of some to find ways and means to act homophobically with the protection of the law.

I hope that you do read this and will actually take time to respond.

Yours Sincerely
Stephen Glenn 

Gordon Dunne yesterday in Stormont

Yesterday in Stormont one of my MLAs for North Down Gordon Dunne (DUP) asked the following question to OFMDFM:

Mr Dunne asked the First Minister and deputy First Minister whether they believe that, given the launch today of a private Member’s Bill to include a conscience clause, the Equality Commission should now withdraw legal action against Ashers Bakery pending the outcome of the legislative process. (AQT 1861/11-15)

The response seeing as it was the Deputy First Minister answering the questions (although he deferred to his junior minister was actually better than if it had been left to the unionist side of OFMDFM I suspect.

Mr M McGuinness: With your permission, Mr Principal Deputy Speaker, junior Minister McCann will answer this question.
Ms J McCann: I thank the Member for his question. I am aware that some discussions took place between the Equality Commission and the bakery prior to the civil case being taken. The main issue is the extent to which suppliers of goods and services can refuse service on the grounds of sexual orientation, religious beliefs or political opinion. I think that the civil case will determine whether any discrimination has taken place.
Mr Dunne: I thank the junior Minister for her answer. Does she agree that the Equality Commission should withdraw its legal action pending against Ashers Bakery at this time?
Ms J McCann: It is not up to OFDMFM to agree or disagree with the Equality Commission. It is its own body and it has an independent role to advance fairness and equality for all. It is also responsible for implementing legislation on all those cases and challenging discrimination. We have to leave it to the Equality Commission because, at the end of the day, that will be where it will see whether discrimination happened. I am sure that the Equality Commission will have taken whatever measures it could have before entering into that case.

The point is that no matter what anybody's political persuasion the Equality Commission has to be allowed to operate independently as it is often testing the Assembly's own adherence to equality. Plus they have to act on the law as it stands at the moment.

Indeed surely the Assembly which has taken over 8 years in some consultations and still no action on activity cannot delay the legal process. But does this mean that this consultation and possibly never enacted Bill are a new stalling tactic that the DUP are using to prevent LGBT people from getting a determination in law if they feel their rights have been violated. If so, this is a new low even for the DUP and proves that the Conscience Clause is nothing of the sort but a get at LGBT people by a different means.

My new MLAs -how they got there and what it means #ndo11 #ae11

I was sitting around near the North Down Alliance team, augmented by Brian Wilson and the DUP's Peter Weir as they accumulated their tallies on Friday morning after verification.

Even then it was clear that Peter along with his party colleagues Alex Easton and Gordon Dunne were going to get elected. Stephen Farry of the Alliance also looked safe it was a matter of where the other two seats would go. The UUP were looking like they didn't have a full quota (4015 is turned out) between them, the two independent Alans, McFarland, the former UUP MLA looking to be returned now he was independent, and Chambers. Or would the Alliance manage to get a second in with Anne Wilson or would the Green's manage to replace her husband with Steven Agnew.

It was all tense stuff. The main concern was how the DUP transfers would go. A lot of DUP papers appeared to have just 1,2,3 and no further preference but others did transfer. The other thing was how would the independent Unionist votes transfer and most worryingly for the UUP would they still be in the race if one of the independents got eliminated.

The breakdown of the results was:

DUP 3 candidates 3.1 quotas
Alliance 2 candidates 1.3 quotas
UUP 2 candidates 0.7 quotas
Green 1candidate 0.55 quotas
Alan McFarland 0.46 quotas
Alan Chambers 0.44 quotas

Others 3 candidates (SDLP, UKIP, Sinn Féin) 0.42 quotas

It was going to be tight. Agnew was just 107 first preferences ahead of Anne Wilson to come 5th. But that once the DUP managed to get there three in on one on the first round and the other two on the allocation of Easton's surplus in the second round it was the unionist block of 1.6 quotas that made it unlikely that both Wilson and Agnew would make it. So although it was unclead which unionist made it as well there was a fight on for the sixth seat between the Alliance and Greens and it was going to be tight. Problem for me now was that it looked like my top three preferences were going to only secure two seats.

When both the Alans were eliminated it pushed Leslie Cree over the quota securing the UUP one seat and then it was down to his surplus. The transfer of that ended up giving Agnew the edge maintaining a Green representative at Stormont.

However, it does throw up interesting permitations for the Executive. The UUP are on 16 seats they secured Cree's seat from 9th place in the first preferences. Though you are not going to get me suddenly defending First Past the post that saw DUP 1,2,3, Alliance 4 and 6 with Greens 5. If Anne Wilson had of won her seat that would have been 9 Alliance. Therefore under D'Hondt the second UUP seat (the final seat to be allocated*). Eight the half of the UUP seats (having already secured one minister) will be equal to the 8 seats held by the Alliance. The tie break is votes again divided as by D'Hondt. There the UUP's 87, 531 is divided by 2 making 43,765 again less than the Alliance's 50,875, therefore earning David Ford another seat.

The UUP are however flirting with David McClarty the former deputy speaker and member of their party who stood as an independent after failing to be selected in East Londonderry. He managed to get 73 first preferences more than the two UUP candidates and get re-elected where either of them failed to do. But this is a case of where the people did have a option of voting for an official party candidate and didn't do so. What would have happened in North Down if instead of Cree getting in another former UUP MLA Alan McFarland had got elected, would it then have been them that they were courting. Or what if Wilson and McFarland had got in instead of Cree and Agnew this would all have just been a series of what ifs in the final rounds of counting in Newtownards on Saturday that would have been eventually forgotten.

* The order will be DUP, Sinn Féin, DUP, UUP, SF, SDLP, DUP, SF, DUP, Alliance