Debate contribution: Right to Try Scheme
Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on .
- MLA
- Mr Gordon Lyons
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 15 June 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Right to Try Scheme
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5614038
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I am grateful to the Member for that question. As I am sure she knows by now, that is a key area of concern for me. Our economic inactivity rate is simply too high. We have too many people on welfare, and that burden is being carried by everyone else. Many individuals who are economically inactive face multiple and often overlapping barriers, including ill health, disability, caring responsibilities and skill gaps. We will continue to deliver targeted employment support programmes, including Workable and Access to Work, which are provisions delivered through our front line, and interventions commissioned under the labour market partnerships that aim to help those furthest from the labour market to find employment. Importantly, the Member also raised the issue of progress in employment. We should want for all our citizens that they continue to deliver and to develop their skills and abilities, so we want to ensure that we provide the necessary support for them. That is why the pathways to work and well-being transformation project is so important. It means taking a step back from what we have always done, and it challenges us all to redesign the current health and work system and to deliver something that is far more joined up and effective in addressing the wider issues that are preventing people from finding and staying in work.
224 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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