Debate contribution: Child Poverty: North Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on 24 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Robbie Butler

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

24 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Child Poverty: North Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4645069

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank Nuala McAllister for securing the Adjournment debate. It is a really important topic. I will speak not from notes but genuinely from my heart on this issue because poverty is an issue that we have debated in this Chamber since I started in 2016. When you think that we live in, perhaps, the fifth biggest economy in the world, it is ridiculous that, in 2024, we have pockets in this country — given its size; we are not very big — where we see young people at birth, pre-birth and through their early lives faced with inequalities that should not exist in this society. Poverty has many and diverse, but strange, bedfellows, unfortunately. If you are born into poverty, your life expectancy is already reduced. I speak from the position of having family who live in West Belfast, which, obviously, borders Lisburn and Castlereagh, Lagan Valley and North Belfast. I share the name with those family members; they are the Butlers in Highfield, in Belfast. Statistically, because I live in Lisburn, in Lagan Valley, I am expected to live somewhere between 10 or 11 — maybe 13 — years longer than them. I hope that that is not the case, but it is absolutely ridiculous. It is a postcode lottery, and it really is wrong. I really am glad that we have a Programme for Government. I have no critiques about the content, but I certainly have some critiques about the omissions. I suppose that our Executive can be forgiven for that because we had a compressed time frame to put it together so we had to list a number of priorities that we are going to tackle. However, the Executive cannot be forgiven for this: the missions all begin with the letter "P" — it is like Presbyterian alliteration — and we have "people" "planet", "prosperity" and "peace", but there is not a particular target on poverty. If poverty were there as a particular target, I think that the rewards would be off the charts. As many Members have said, if you live in poverty, you are more likely to suffer from poor mental health. If you live in poverty, you are more likely to be suicidal. If you live in poverty, you are more likely to have a physical disability or a learning disability. If you live in poverty, you are less likely to achieve educationally. If you live in poverty, you are less likely to have a suitable home. If you live in poverty, you are less likely to be contributing to the environmentally friendly nature of climate protection. Poverty has strange and many diverse bedfellows, but none of those bedfellows is worthy of pursuit. In saying this, I will remain apolitical. I have listened with interest for many years, and I know that Carál Ní Chuilín is absolutely passionate about quality homes. I have loved working with Carál on that issue on different all-party groups. Poverty is a political choice. Everybody is right to point to the previous Conservative Government, their austerity agenda and the changes that have been manifest, but if we do not look at ourselves in this Chamber, when we did not sit for five years out of eight, we neglect the responsibility of political failure here. We are as responsible for the political failure to tackle poverty as any other political agency on these islands, and we need to learn from that. At the weekend, the leader of the DUP hinted that he perhaps would not be bringing the Assembly down. I hope that that applies for any reason, and I hope that, perhaps, at some stage, the Sinn Féin leader can also give this country confidence that tackling poverty and promising our young people a better future will the number-one political priority. Last night, there was a meeting of an all-party group on political engagement for young people, and the topic was housing and quality homes. Every Member who has spoken in this debate has touched on that issue. That tells me that our young people, who are suffering the burden of poverty, inequity and inequality in respect of suitable accommodation, see that as a pressing priority for the Government. We have only two and a half years left to get on the rails. We all accept that ending poverty has to be our political aim. It will take time, and it will take political stability, a political will and a singular purpose among everybody in the Chamber. By the end of the debate, I am sure that we will all agree on the sense of direction. I hope that we can keep things on the rails in the Chamber and deliver for the people of Northern Ireland.

789 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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