Stormont official sorry over ‘fiasco’ delay that stopped law scrutiny

A senior Stormont official has apologised for failing to give assembly members enough time to scrutinise Westminster legislation before it becomes law.

Neil Gibson, the permanent secretary at the Department of Finance, said he took “full responsibility” for the delay and promised to learn lessons from what happened.

The Data Use and Access bill, which aims to modernise laws around the sharing of data, will now be passed without the legislative consent of assembly members at Stormont.

Instead they will discuss and “note” the bill when it comes before the chamber.

Speaker Edwin Poots said it was “unacceptable” while the leader of the opposition, and chair of the Finance Committee, Matthew O’Toole described the delay as a “fiasco”.

The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have already given their consent for the legislation, which is expected to receive royal assent within weeks.

Appearing before the Finance Committee, Neil Gibson apologised to members and linked the delay to the Windsor Framework.

He said officials waited for more than two months to get an assessment from the UK government on how the new legislation might impact the Windsor Framework.

This was a process the Scottish and Welsh administrations were not required to do, he added.

He accepted officials should have notified the committee about the hold up, which he said was his “biggest regret”.

Mr Gibson also confirmed a new tracker system will be put in place to ensure all Westminster bills which require a legislative consent motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly is progressed on time.