Debate contribution: Programme for Government

Debate contribution by Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly on 7 October 2024.

MLA

Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

7 October 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Programme for Government

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4579651

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Members who tabled the motion. On taking office, we pledged to work with all parties across the Executive and the Assembly to confront the challenges that we face and to capitalise on the many opportunities on offer to deliver a better future for Northern Ireland. That is exactly what we and our colleagues in the Executive have done with the draft Programme for Government, which is now out for consultation. In the draft Programme for Government, we set out nine priorities. They are growing a globally competitive economy; delivering more affordable childcare; cutting health waiting lists; ending violence against women and girls; providing better support for children and young people with special educational needs; providing more social, sustainable and affordable housing; having safer communities; protecting Lough Neagh and the environment; and reforming and transforming public services. We have also made proposals to invest in infrastructure, including water management, and have identified a set of long-term missions that the Executive will pursue. I welcome Members referring to some of the big infrastructure challenges that we face, not least with the water and sewerage system, but we also have capital spend pressures for, for example, public transport, the education estate and social and affordable housing. In fact, all those challenges tie in with the water and sewerage system. The proposals and the plan for doing that work will be set out in the investment strategy for Northern Ireland as opposed to being the primary focus of the Programme for Government, although the two documents are, of course, inextricably linked in that ambition. It is for the public, the Assembly and all our partners to tell us whether those are the priorities that matter most to people here, which is why we encourage everyone to get involved in the consultation. The consultation is open until 4 November, and we very much encourage Members to share the information with groups, organisations and constituents. I am really pleased to say that we have had a good response to the draft Programme for Government thus far. We are up to 366 responses online, which is a healthy number at the midpoint. We know that many people often wait until the later stages of a consultation before responding. The time frames involved mean that we also committed to looking at responses as they come in. I am pleased to say that the early indications are that there is significant support for the nine priorities in those online responses. Once the consultation period has concluded and once the Executive have properly considered the responses and the input of Committees, we will work collectively to agree a final Programme for Government that will then be brought to the Assembly for cross-community approval. I thank the Committee — the Committee Chair is not in her place — for the work that it will undertake and has undertaken thus far as a coordinating Committee for the other Committees on the Programme for Government. That is invaluable work, often gathering in the specific departmental and sectoral interests from across the range of Committees. There is, of course, more work to be done before a final programme is agreed, and we will work with the Executive to consider carefully how best to include targets. Any targets will need to be specific, measurable and time-bound. Most of all, they will need to be meaningful and result in change that people want and need to see. We have already made a good start on that. Earlier, during Question Time, there was reference to our well-being framework and dashboard. The 40 indicators will be a critical aspect of measuring this. Those 40 indicators will be key measurements against the nine priorities, and they will be updated, as I indicated earlier, in real time in order to measure progress. It will also give us an indication of problems in real time. Often, Ministers refer to targets going the wrong way or being red as opposed to green or amber and going in the right direction. That well-being dashboard should be able to give us those indications, which will facilitate Ministers and the Executive in taking mitigating actions. The challenge for us all will be the difficult Budget and fiscal environment in which we are trying to deliver. We are determined to deliver against all nine priorities. The scale of that delivery and the realisation of our ambition will, in part, depend on the Budget that is available. As I indicated to the Committee last week, it is unlikely that we will have a multi-year Budget before next year. The lack of a multi-year Budget prevents us from making the planned decisions that we would want to make. However, we anticipate that the fiscal environment will be difficult for the next 12 to 18 months at least. Therefore, the targets and priorities will all be scalable. If we secure additional revenue, we will, of course, scale those up.

The sustainability plan was to set out the framework for managing, regardless of the situation that we are in, but it also made it clear that our preference is for a multi-year Budget. We made that point directly to the Prime Minister. We made it directly, strongly and robustly to the Chancellor when we met her. She indicated to us that she agreed that the multi-year Budget was the preference but, of course, also highlighted the difficulty for the new Government in coming in and being able to take a look at those longer-term measures. I expect that some of that challenge is because the fiscal environment is particularly challenging at the moment. The Government will want to align a multi-year Budget with some ambition for what they want to achieve over the remaining three to four years of their term beyond next year. We have to work with the conditions in which we find ourselves. Ultimately, we are dictated to by whether a multi-year Budget comes out of Treasury. We also made the point that longer-term funding supports us, particularly on the capital side, and, indeed, that more needs to be done on that coordination piece. I have no doubt that we will raise that point again at the Council of the Nations and Regions on Friday. We will also look at how to link projects in the Programme for Government to that well-being dashboard. The indicators on that dashboard will be updated automatically when the latest data is published. Again, I advise all Members to look at that and bring forward any views that they have. That will aid work across the Executive and help us to identify and bring forward solutions when issues are found. We will also look to identify gaps in data by strengthening our suite of indicators. The aim is for those to be dynamic, so, if some of them are not working in the right way or doing what we want them to do with regard to that progressive realisation against our overall targeted outcome, we should be able to change them, if needs be. We will, of course, take feedback from the relevant Committees as well. The indicators on mental health, the number of people in housing stress and the percentage of people who see towns and city centres as safe and welcoming are currently not moving in the right direction. In order to continually improve, it is important that we have prioritised healthcare, the provision of more social, affordable and sustainable housing and safer communities. We will, as we have said in the Assembly, work with Executive colleagues to carefully consider and introduce specific, measurable and time-bound objectives where it makes sense to do so, but to approve the motion would mean that we agree changes to the process that I have outlined and the programme itself without letting that consultation run its course fully. It is also important that we, as an Executive, have that opportunity to reach a collective decision based on the rounded view that a consultation exercise provides.The process, while maybe not the most exciting part of this, is critical. Keen as we are to see timely progress, we are not willing to do either of those things. The First Minister and I agree with Members that it is important to clearly set out what we are working to achieve through the programme and to be transparent when it comes to reporting our progress. The Programme for Government sets out priorities. We have said it before, and I will say again: it is not the totality of our ambition. Frankly, despite reflections from some Members across the Chamber that they find the Programme for Government underwhelming, the reality is that if, in two and a half years, we have made significant progress against all nine priorities, that will be a job well done. We are realistic about that, and I think that the public expect us to be. Some valid issues have been raised about older people and making sure that their interests are fully integrated; the underpinning of our infrastructure; the importance of our investment strategy; and the importance of all kinds of other issues from mental health to health, young people, wildlife and peace as a core objective that underlines our work. All those issues are essential, but the Programme for Government is ultimately about prioritisation. It is up to individual Ministers, working in their Departments or cross-departmentally and across agencies, to bring forward a huge suite of additional measures to respond to statutory responsibilities and address the many other concerns in society that are not referenced in this prioritised document. This is a positive way forward for the Executive and provides clear prioritisation. If we fulfil the ambition that we have set out, we will make a real and meaningful difference to people throughout Northern Ireland on the issues that matter most to them.

1,648 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:23 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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