Debate contribution: Communities

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 10 March 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

10 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Question for Urgent Oral Answer

Heading

Communities

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4841357

Read the official Assembly record

Text

My colleague the Minister for Communities is unavailable at present. Therefore, I answer the question on his behalf. Minister Lyons's Department has noted the findings of the court, and officials are considering them in detail. He has noted that the case brought against him as Minister for Communities was dismissed, and he welcomes the fact that the court recognised his intention to produce an anti-poverty strategy in the near future for consideration and, if appropriate, adoption by the Executive Committee. It is Minister Lyons's intention to present a paper on the anti-poverty strategy to the Executive by the end of March. Final decisions on consultation and implementation will be subject to decision by the Executive. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for him to comment further on the matter until after the judge has ruled on potential relief in the case.

The Member will know more about this than I do, so I seek to relay as much information as I can to him. He will know that there are three pillars that form the anti-poverty strategy: minimising the risk of falling into poverty; mitigating the impacts of poverty; and assisting people to exit poverty. I know that my colleague has been working on the issue over the months since he took up his position as Minister. He has engaged with stakeholders. He has committed to bringing a paper to the Executive within the next number of weeks, so it is his intention to have a paper with the Executive before the end of this month. I understand that he is considering that Executive paper right now while he does his duties in the United States of America representing the people of Northern Ireland and continues to do his work as Minister. The paper will come to the Executive. It will then be for the Executive to agree it, which, I trust, they will. It will then go out for public consultation. There will be further opportunity for stakeholders to engage during that public consultation period.

The Member has articulated that, when it came to the finding, there was a breach by the Executive because of their duty. Minister Lyons has been progressing the work since he took up office. The court recognised the work that he has taken forward. The court dismissed the challenge from the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) relating to a failure on the part of the Minister for Communities. The CAJ also challenged the First Minister and deputy First Minister about complying with their obligations, and, again, the judge dismissed the case. It is important now that we get on with the work of concluding the Executive's consideration of the paper when it comes forward. That will allow a consultation to take place on the strategy, which will give people further opportunity to engage with the process. My colleague has applied himself very much to the job of getting the strategy done. It did not need a court case for him to do that, because he has been getting on with the job. We will see the fruition of that over the next number of weeks.

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I can confirm that Minister Lyons has raised the issue at Executive meetings. I can bear testimony to the fact that he has raised it and has kept Executive colleagues updated on the progress that has been made to get us to this stage. We are now close to having a paper presented to the Executive and, hopefully, a positive decision taken on it. We will then be able to make progress. Minister Lyons believes very much in providing support to people who need to be supported. He has been acting on that belief, and I believe that we are very close to making the progress that we need to see.

That is an important question. In bringing forward the strategy, what resource will be made available for it? That will be the real test. We need to get the strategy right, and it needs to be comprehensive. As with the strategies that I am pursuing, we need to make sure that they are the right ones. They need to be backed up with resource, however. My colleague has been applying himself to the strategy. Indeed, when I was Minister for Communities, I had been making progress on it, but the Executive were then collapsed and not by me. I suspect that we would have had —.

Thank you. You got there. As I was saying, when I was in post, I was making progress with the strategy. Gordon Lyons has now picked up the mantle and has been effective in getting us to this stage, but we need to get to the other side of an Executive decision and allow the public consultation to take place. The strategy needs to have a meaningful impact, however. Setting aside the political points that are being made, we all have the same objective, which is to help the people most in need in our society. That is a test not just for the Minister for Communities but for the entire Executive.

You would have had an anti-poverty strategy had your party not collapsed the Assembly when I was in post. It would have been out of the door and in place. Minister Lyons is very much applying himself to addressing the issue. He has engaged extensively on the issues and will bring a paper to the Executive in the next number of weeks, and I trust that it will be supported. The Member makes a point about frustration. When we get the strategy through the Executive, the frustration will not be over the failure to have a strategy but over what resource is applied to it. It is the Member's party that holds the purse strings when it comes to what resources will be applied to the strategy. We will see how that test is passed or not.

The Member is absolutely right about that engagement, including with my Department. I have engaged with the Minister and indicated the need to facilitate the outworkings of the strategy when it comes to education. One area that Members have raised as a concern is the holiday hunger payment, which the Department of Education cannot take forward — it does not have the resources to do it. However, I have asked whether the Department of Education and our schools can play a role in helping to address some of the issues. Once the strategy is agreed by the Executive, it becomes an Executive-endorsed strategy; it will be a collective effort to see it taken forward. Minister Lyons has very much been leading on it, and I trust that, in the next number of weeks, he will secure Executive agreement for the paper that he intends to bring forward.

I hope that no Committee or Member will be prevented from asking questions about the implementation of this strategy or, indeed, any other strategy. I know that the Member is tenacious in how she goes about her work, and I am confident that she will get accountability and answers to the questions that she asks. I would expect Departments to provide answers to Members when they ask questions. When it becomes an Executive-agreed strategy and there are commitments for other Departments to follow — as the Member highlights, the Minister has led on it, but it then becomes a collective, cross-cutting departmental commitment by the Executive — all of us will be held to account, my Department included, in how we go about meeting the objectives in the strategy. I would expect Departments to facilitate Members. As would be the case in any democratic institution, MLAs are elected to seek answers on behalf of their constituents, and I would expect them to be facilitated.

We live in a democratic society where people are entitled to seek recourse through the courts. It is an entitlement of any citizen to hold the executive branch to account through the courts. I welcome the opportunities that our citizens have. Many places across the world do not provide such freedoms to their citizens; we do. However, it did not take a court challenge for my ministerial colleague to get on with the job of bringing the strategy forward, nor should it take court challenges in other areas. I assure the Member that the work has been taken forward by Minister Lyons. A paper will be presented to the Executive, I trust, before the end of this month, as he has committed to doing. We will allow the public consultation, and that will give people an opportunity to provide feedback. We will then be able to get on with the job of helping, protecting and supporting the most vulnerable in society — an objective that, I believe, the Member and I share.

Test the commitment that Minister Lyons has shown: he brought the strategy forward and engaged with the work, and he is now bringing a paper to the Executive on it. I trust that the strategy will be put out to consultation and made available to enable the public to see what it contains. We will then have the responses to that consultation process. Good work has taken place. There is more to do, and I have every confidence in my colleague that he will continue to drive the work forward.

1,567 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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