Debate contribution: Child Poverty: North Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on 24 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Gordon Lyons

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

24 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Child Poverty: North Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4645079

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I sincerely thank the Member for North Belfast, Miss McAllister, for securing today's Adjournment debate. I appreciate the contributions that have been made. I have listened to them all very carefully and hope to address all the points that have been raised. Let me say at the outset that poverty is a curse. At its core, poverty is the needs of our people not being properly met. It is a curse on society, and poverty impacts on everyone, everywhere. Members may think that that is a strange statement for me to make, but poverty impacts on all of us, because we are all impacted on by our friends' and our neighbours' situations. We are impacted on as policymakers and decision makers in this place, and there are some things that we might like to do in society but cannot, because of the damaging impacts that poverty brings with it. Tackling poverty, in all its forms, is a key priority for me, and today's debate allows me the opportunity to revisit my commitment to tackling it in a deliberate and decisive way. There has been much talk about North Belfast in particular, as one would expect during an Adjournment debate on child poverty in North Belfast.

I hope that Members will not mind that I am not going to repeat the statistics that have been outlined today. Child poverty is, of course, a serious issue across Northern Ireland, but I understand that it is particularly acute in North Belfast and the other constituencies that have been mentioned. It exists throughout Northern Ireland, unfortunately, and that is why my approach will be to do everything that I can to tackle it everywhere, in every part of Northern Ireland. That will, of course, apply to North Belfast.

I do not intend to go over the work that is already being done. Mr Brett mentioned excellent work that is being done, especially through the community and voluntary sector: significant actions that are alleviating some of the worst impacts of poverty on North Belfast. More work has been done through the neighbourhood renewal programme, which has provided sustained support to areas of deprivation across North Belfast in 2024-25, with £3·8 million having been invested across 45 projects. Lots is being done, but we all know that there is a lot more work to do. I will get straight to it and talk about what I intend to do to tackle this issue in North Belfast and across Northern Ireland. I am pleased to announce to the House that I have agreed the next steps on the anti-poverty strategy. I have written to all Departments and stood up the cross-departmental working group so that we can get the buy-in from other Departments that is necessary to make sure that we work collectively to address the issue. That has been raised time and time again during today's debate. Tackling poverty in Northern Ireland is not solely my responsibility. I am in a position to work with Executive colleagues to bring forward the draft strategy that we now have, and we are going out to the other Departments to get their buy-in so that we can move it forward. I hope that it will be agreed by the Executive early in the new year. I want that buy-in from other Departments so that we are ready to go and can start to tackle the issues that we face. How are we going to do that? There will be three main areas in the strategy. First, I want to make sure that we minimise the risk of falling into poverty. There are a number of ways in which we can do that over the longer term. It is about making sure that children have the best start in life through education. It is about dealing with issues such as debt and ensuring that issues such as disability and addiction are given the proper support that they need, because those are all factors that lead to an increased risk of people falling into poverty. The second thing that I want to do is make sure that we minimise the impact of poverty when people fall into it. That means ensuring that people have the resources that they need and that, again, they have access to education and the help and support that they need for their physical and mental health; that we address issues of place, crime and safety; and that, importantly, we deal with the issue of housing, including fuel poverty, which is a huge driver of poverty overall. Thirdly, I want to make sure that we do everything that we can to support people to exit poverty. We need to make sure that people find themselves in the right economic and employment conditions. We need to support people getting back into work to gain employment and to have the further education opportunities and, importantly, the childcare that they need in order to work. Already, you can see that work being done in some of the job programmes that my Department is responsible for. Job Start was a fantastic programme. Just last week, I met a single mum who was on universal credit. She got work through the Job Start programme and is now in work in a situation that works for her and her family. That is why all these issues together are so important. It is right that we look at this through a whole-system and all-government approach and that we do everything that we can to minimise the risk of falling into poverty, minimise the impact of poverty and also help people to exit poverty. Those will be the three pillars of the anti-poverty strategy. We have actions that we would like to see developed, and we are trying to make sure that we get buy-in from other Departments so that we can push along. I know how long people have waited for the strategy. As Carál Ní Chuilín pointed out, they have been waiting since the Northern Ireland Act was put in place. I am determined that we will deliver it, and I hope that Members will see that this is the way forward to tackle poverty overall. When thinking of child poverty, we cannot separate it from poverty in general. Poverty does not happen in isolation to children; it happens to families and to those in the wider community, so it is right that we take this approach. I will be happy to discuss the strategy further with Members as we make progress on it. I will address some of the issues that were raised, although I hope that I have done so already. You will have seen my commitment to addressing the issue, but some issues came up time and time again. The first was that the strategy will require cross-departmental work. It is not solely the responsibility of any one Department, but there are a number of things that we need to do. I have heard different Members talk about the importance of education and the poverty of aspiration. I absolutely believe that education is the key to keeping people out of poverty. We need to make sure that education is a focus and a priority, and I intend to focus on childhood education and lifelong learning as part of the strategy. We also touched briefly on the issue of housing, which is fundamental. How can you get the good education that you need if you are in temporary accommodation and constantly moving around? How can you get a good job that will sustain you and your family if you do not have the necessary skills? It is exceptionally important that those issues are addressed, and, as Members can see, they all tie in with each other. Those are the keys to tackling poverty, which is why I take exception to the comments from Robbie Butler and Sinéad McLaughlin. Poverty has not been left out of the Programme for Government. Now, of course, a consultation is going on, and the Member may respond to it and say that she wants it to be spelt out more clearly. However, let us look at some of the priorities in the Programme for Government: housing is a priority, which we have said is key to tackling poverty; healthcare is a priority, and we have said that it is key to tackling poverty; education is a priority, and it is key to tackling poverty; good jobs are a priority, and they are key to tackling poverty. All the things that we are trying to do will contribute to tackling the issue that has plagued so many areas across Northern Ireland, particularly North Belfast. It is wrong to say that tackling poverty is not in the Programme for Government, because it is, of course, one of our priorities. My time is coming to an end, but I hope that, in the short time that I had, Members will have seen my commitment to dealing with the issue. We will put in place a strategy that will deal with the key stages, and I hope that we will end up with better outcomes for people right across Northern Ireland.

1,536 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

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.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification