Doug Beattie refuses to back DUP bid to block integrated education bill

By Q Radio News/ PA

Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie said his party will not sign an Assembly veto mechanism – the petition of concern – to aid the DUP in blocking a Bill designed to give additional support to the integrated education sector in Northern Ireland.

The DUP claims the Bill proposed by the Alliance Party MLA Kellie Armstrong would elevate the integrated sector above other school sectors in Northern Ireland.

The party needs 30 signatures to secure a valid petition of concern – a mechanism that would require the vote on the final stage of the Bill to secure a majority of both nationalist and unionist MLAs to pass.

The UUP had been facing calls from the DUP to sign the petition to reach the 30 threshold. Without a valid petition of concern, the vote will be conducted on a straight majority basis.

Addressing the debate in the Assembly, Mr Beattie said while his party would oppose the Bill it would not sign a petition, insisting that would represent an “abuse” of a device designed to protect minority interests.

“The Ulster Unionist Party will not abuse a mechanism that we put in in good faith in 1998 (Good Friday Agreement) and signing a petition of concern on this issue would be an abuse of that mechanism,” he said.

“There is no minority, there is no single identity being affected. This is a societal issue that we have to deal with and we have to deal with in a democratic way as we are doing here with a vote here.”

Doug Beattie

Kellie Armstrong’s integrated education Bill will place a statutory duty on the Department of Education to provide further support to the integrated sector, including the setting of minimum targets for the numbers of pupils educated in such schools.

Some schools in the controlled and maintained sectors are opposed to the Bill, claiming it would enshrine preferential treatment for the integrated sector.

While most Protestant pupils attend controlled schools in Northern Ireland and most Catholic children attend maintained schools, both sectors insist they are not exclusive to single faiths and have increasingly diverse intakes.

Currently around 7% of school children in Northern Ireland attend a school officially designated as integrated. Just under 70 of the region’s 1091 schools are integrated.

Addressing the debate on Wednesday, Ms Armstrong insisted the purpose of her Bill was to give parents wishing to send their children to an integrated school the same choices as other parents.

“The main aim of the integrated education Bill is to allow parents to have a preference of the type of school they want to send their child or children to,” she said.

“Across Northern Ireland some areas don’t have an integrated school, so parents and children have no choice and, in many areas, lots of integrated schools are oversubscribed, again meaning parents who want to send their child to an integrated school are denied the opportunity and their children then go on to a maintained or controlled school.

“This does not happen to parents who choose a maintained or controlled school. If they choose that type of school, their child will go to that type of school. There will always be an option for controlled and maintained schools.”

Alliance Kellie Armstrong with Naomi Long

DUP MLA Diane Dodds voiced her opposition to the integrated education Bill.

“I view this Bill as being fundamentally flawed,” she said.

“Many in this House claim that this Bill is about children being educated together. This Bill is about fundamentally one sector of education – the integrated sector – and fails to acknowledge that children are educated together within other schools and other sectors.”

Ms Dodds said she was not blind to the need for change within Northern Ireland’s education system.

“There are huge issues to be addressed – under-achievement, funding gaps, vocational education, inequality in accessing education, addressing the skills deficit in our economy. But this Bill will not address any of those fundamental issues and, in many cases, will only serve to exacerbate the current problems that we have in our system.

“The Bill is about one sector in our education system and one sector only, a sector that accounts for approximately 7% of the school population.

“This Bill fundamentally ensures that the Minister for Education will have additional duties in law towards the integrated sector that are simply not there for the maintained and the controlled sector.”

Diane Dodds