Speaker of the Assembly issues stark warning over severe time pressures on law-making

By Q Radio News

The Speaker of the Stormont Assembly has warned MLAs "severe" time pressures could prevent some long-awaited legislation from being passed here before the next election. 

The assembly is due to be dissolved next March, ahead of an election in May. 

In a letter, Alex Maskey told MLAs at least 30 bills have yet to pass all legislative stages, adding hat it's unlikely all of them would make it into law in time. 

Mr Maskey said the coronavirus pandemic and power-sharing only being restored last January after three years had created specific challenges.

In his letter to all MLAs he said: "The fact that an Executive was only appointed in January 2020, followed shortly thereafter by  the onset of the pandemic, created very specific challenges for the Assembly in this mandate.  Despite those challenges, it is extremely positive that the Assembly will be dealing with a  significant amount of legislation in the next few months, including the development of a record  amount of Private Members’ Bills (PMBs) in a shortened timeframe."

Mr Maskey added that his three main priorities before March are to protect the scrutiny stages of bills, passing as much legislation as possible, and to advance as many bills as possible.

The Speaker also reminded members of the assembly that the Committee on Procedures is currently reviewing the present system of Private Members Bills, which could change how the prospective laws are managed after next year's assembly election.

(A backlog of legislation will force MLAs to work intensively on law-making in the coming months)