Questions for Ulster Unionists over NI minimum criminal age move

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Jon Burrows has refused to be drawn on whether his assembly team will support a move to prevent raising the age at which a child can be prosecuted for a crime in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Féin, Alliance and the SDLP all back the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility (MACR) changing from 10 to 14, with clear exceptions for offences such as murder, manslaughter or rape.

The DUP, which is against raising the age, has tabled a Stormont veto mechanism, known as a petition of concern, to try to block it.

It is due to be debated in the assembly next week as part of the Justice Bill, but a successful petition of concern requires 30 signatures from two or more parties.

The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is also against raising the age and Burrows has put on record his view that it should not change either.

The petition would need at least four UUP signatures in order to pass, as backing from 25 DUP MLAs and one TUV MLA would not meet the threshold.

However, it is not clear how many others within Burrows' eight-strong MLA team at Stormont will be persuaded.

Upper Bann MLA and former UUP leader Doug Beattie, who quit the party on Sunday, previously said he was in favour of raising the age from 10 to 12.

Pressed on whether the issue could lead to a split in the party, Burrows said he had yet to address it with his MLA team.

He said he would consult with them and that the UUP would come to a position when it had discussed the "merits" of the petition of concern.

But he added that he believed raising the age of criminal responsibility was "reckless", and said parties in favour of the change had not thought through the consequences of doing so.

MACR is the lowest age at which a person can be arrested and charged with committing a crime.

Ten is one of the lowest ages anywhere in the world.

Like Northern Ireland, it is also 10 in England and Wales.

In Scotland it is 12 - the same as in the Republic of Ireland - but provision has been made for exceptional cases, with criminal responsibility for the most serious offences being set at 10.

The UN body which monitors the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has urged countries to raise their MACRs to at least 14.

In 2023, the Department of Justice found there was "strong support" for raising the age from 10 to 14.

Previous efforts to examine the legislation failed to attract sufficient political support.