BBC News Northern Ireland

The DUP’s Paul Frew says “things are fast moving” at that the minute, adding it’s a time to “scrutinise further and deeper” the legislation the house passes.

He says he has “really grave concerns about the transparency of these departments, over the secrecy of which they are still conducting business and the way they are treating scrutiny committees with disdain”.

He talks about the “media interest” in a failed PPE order to China, and says the Finance Committee asked for “all emails concerning this issue”.

NI Assembly

He says the committee received a number of emails, but says there were two days in which no emails were included.

Mr Frew says the committee asked for information about these two days, to which he says the minister responded that the email exchanges “between 30 and 31 March” related to volumes, products, specifications and pricing.

According to Mr Frew, the minister’s response added, “these exchanges were not regarded by officials as relevant to the committee's initial request”.

The DUP MLA claims “a BBC Freedom of Information request was issued on the same lines, with the same similar request, and the Department of Finance has refused that Freedom of Information”.

The North Antrim MLA says as an individual MLA, he “cannot and will not support accelerated passage any more for any further legislation that comes before this house or a committee”.