Steve Aiken suspended from assembly after vote

Steve Aiken was previously leader of the UUP between 2019 and 2021

Steve Aiken has said he "respects the outcome" of a decision to suspend him from the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Ulster Unionist Party assembly member (MLA) has received a two-day suspension.

He was accused of breaching the "confidentiality" of the assembly complaints process.

The standards committee recommended a sanction over Mr Aiken disclosing a complaint he had made against another MLA.

On Tuesday, MLAs backed a motion to suspend him from attending business next Monday and Tuesday.

Mr Aiken is an MLA for the South Antrim constituency and a deputy speaker for the Stormont assembly.

He was previously leader of the UUP between 2019 and 2021.

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Mr Aiken said he took deliberations by the standards and privileges committee seriously and that he respected its judgement.

"I will not restate my case but members if they so wish can read my arguments on record," he said.

He said that when the investigation took place in 2021, he was dealing with a range of other issues.

"I freely admit her investigation was not my number one priority," he said, citing his stepping down as UUP leader, family illnesses and a threat to his team by loyalist paramilitaries as factors.

Paula Bradshaw of Alliance called on Mr Aiken to consider his position as deputy speaker

Mr Aiken was critical that he had only been given 45 minutes notice last week that he was facing a sanction.

"Giving 45 minutes notice of something that happened 30 months ago would not be accepted in any other forum and should not be here ether," he said.

Chair of the standards committee, Sinn Fein's Carál Ní Chuilín, said Mr Aiken should have been "leading by example".

Alliance's Paula Bradshaw called on Mr Aiken to consider his position as deputy speaker, given the issues raised about his conduct and his engagement with the investigation.

What was the complaint?

A complaint was made against Mr Aiken to the assembly's standards commissioner by Sinn Féin MLA Maolíosa McHugh.

It was after Mr Aiken told a Stormont committee in November 2020 that he had made a complaint about Mr McHugh to the commissioner, Melissa McCullough.

Ms McCullough investigated but Mr Aiken's complaint was not upheld.

But in her investigation into Mr McHugh's complaint, the commissioner found Mr Aiken had breached the MLA code of conduct relating to disclosure of confidential information.

She also found he breached the code by "failing to co-operate with my investigation".

The commissioner's report was considered in March 2022 by the standards and privileges committee, which is made up of MLAs.

It described the conduct as an "egregious" breach of the code given that Mr Aiken was a member of the standards and privileges committee at the time.

The committee proposed that when the devolved institutions returned, their successors should consider an appropriate sanction for recommendation to the assembly.