Debate contribution: Shared Future: Strategic Framework

Debate contribution by Ms Paula Bradshaw on 8 April 2024.

MLA

Ms Paula Bradshaw

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Shared Future: Strategic Framework

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4481076

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

In proposing the motion, I wish to be clear that it is, in many ways, a positive motion. Much of what I say will reflect on the significant progress that has been made in our society since the Good Friday Agreement, even if that has often been in spite of, rather than because of, the endless challenges that the political institutions that were founded by that agreement have had to endure. Indeed, in many ways, the argument that my colleagues and I will make today is that politics needs to catch up with society. As we plan our Programme for Government and Budget, we still need to think about the potential for a fourth pillar to add to the three of planet, people and prosperity that are in existence. We would like to see peace added to those. The motion, which I hope will secure cross-party support, will require the First Minister and deputy First Minister to take forward the development of a shared future strategic framework. That would require each Department to develop and deliver its services and programmes in ways that ensure that they reflect the need to prioritise and promote peace and reconciliation and to meaningfully challenge and tackle the cost of division. Part of the story that we will set out today will be about great progress, great advance and great opportunity, and part of it will be about the ongoing scars in our society and the many communities that have not fully benefited from that progress. Those scars are sometimes literal in our built environment, most obviously in the form of the so-called peace walls that were all supposed to have been brought down by last year. However, we should not forget that the cost in lost progress and lost opportunity is borne not by infrastructure but by people. A genuinely shared future, to be clear, is not a neutral future where we are afraid to express ourselves. On the contrary, it is one where people can express their cultural heritage with confidence and where we are not confined to one side of the sectarian fault line in seeking out opportunities to express ourselves. It is a future where the drummer in the band parade offers up an opportunity to play the drum to a young lad coming home from GAA training; it is one where Irish-language classes take place in inner city east Belfast; and it is one where the same person vies to play on the county panel in the summer and on the provincial team in the winter. The point is that all that already happens, and I firmly believe that it happens considerably more than it did. It is our shared present. We just need a lot more of it. In many communities, however, segregation remains a way of life. Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) has been of value to many such communities, but it has at times, perhaps, been too programmatic, focusing on local interventions in areas that then become reliant on that short-term funding rather than on a strategic policy overview through public-sector delivery that would make the fundamental and necessary changes in how our society as a whole functions. For example, in my constituency, one of our local youth clubs has been advised that its budget will be severely reduced this year. We know that those are the very structures through which good relations work can be delivered, so, if we were to stop duplicating our services, that would free up money for long-term, front-line and sustained delivery. We can quote the literal cost of segregation. As long ago as 2007, a Deloitte report put that cost at £1·5 billion. Certainly, no one seriously disputes that it runs into hundreds of millions of pounds. That is a financial cost. It effectively comes off money that, as I just said, could be spent on efficient public services, particularly in the areas that need them most. However, perhaps the bigger issue is the social cost. Those communities in which the fear of different identities and outlooks prevails are also the ones in which living standards and life expectancies tend to be lower, often markedly so. Overcoming that fear and embracing opportunity is not an easy task, but if it leads to communities that are more open to the opportunities offered by diversity, it will surely lead to communities that are happier, healthier and more prosperous. We need to find ways to focus on the opportunities that would arise if we brought down the walls, both literal and metaphorical, that divide us. When we live with walls for generations, they inevitably become the norm, but we must never stop reinforcing the point that dividing communities with walls is abnormal. The peace monitoring report published in November 2023 notes that intercommunal violence is now extremely rare, so we have to address the fear that many people still live with. A strategic framework could help by delivering policy outcomes, for example by improving air quality and increasing levels of economic opportunity in urban areas, which would reduce fear by bringing communities together with common cause across walls. The strategic framework should sit with the First Minister and deputy First Minister because of their coordination role in cross-departmental outcomes and outworkings. We must also confront the reality that there are still communities that live a pre-1998 existence, in single-identity areas, often, sadly, complete with paramilitary trappings, where children and young people continue even in 2024 to be exploited. Sadly, we saw that in Derry over Easter. The motion asks the Assembly, however, to confirm its determination that moving on from that type of existence everywhere is a good thing. We must no longer allow anywhere to settle for breeding fear and limiting future prospects. The mixing of our population and the growing presence of newcomers and their families have changed the face of Northern Ireland. Surveys show that it is widely recognised that they have done so for the better: with diversity comes opportunity. The recent peace monitoring report makes it clear that the greatest growth in prejudice is not along sectarian lines but along racial lines. Race is now the most common basis of crime with hate motivation. Most people reported to the Northern Ireland life and times survey in 2022 that they felt that there is as much or more racial prejudice now than five years ago, yet our racial equality strategy — another case where there is a need for cross-departmental cooperation and collaboration — has not been fully implemented one year from its conclusion, and we remain the only part of the UK without a final refugee integration strategy. There is learning not just from T:BUC but from the original 'A Shared Future' policy dating from 2005, which set as its objective:

“The establishment over time of a normal, civic society, in which all individuals are considered as equals, where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere, and where all people are treated impartially”

and thus of:

“A society where there is equity, respect for diversity and a recognition of our interdependence”.

That objective still holds true today, including for tackling all forms of prejudice and discrimination. That is why the motion calls specifically for a strategic framework. We want to see policies developed and delivered through co-design and in a cohesive way so that a commitment to a shared future free from prejudice while maximising opportunity is woven into everything our Executive parties do. I hope that I have set out the many benefits to us all of building a shared future, overcoming segregation and ending prejudice, building on work already undertaken. Yet we still need the fourth pillar — planet, people, prosperity and peace. Therefore, I urge all Members to back the motion to replace a bitter, fearful and divided past with a reconciled, hopeful and shared future that is led by all our Executive Ministers under a strategic framework. Thank you.

1,331 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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