Debate contribution: Programme for Government 2024-27

Debate contribution by Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly on 3 March 2025.

MLA

Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

3 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Programme for Government 2024-27

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4826379

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. My goodness, how does one follow that?

However, I will try. We have heard a significant number of contributions from right across the Chamber. The First Minister and I welcome that. We welcome the interest in the Programme for Government and the range of issues raised, because, of course, this is a Programme for Government, so it covers many different elements of what we do. However, we made it clear from the outset and in the introductory remarks by the First Minister that this document is not the totality of our ambitions; not even the totality of the ambitions of the Executive and, certainly, not for the individual Ministers. It is, of course, about prioritisation, and prioritisation is always difficult. We are in a fiscally constrained environment. It is difficult to fund everything that we want to fund, and that requires hard decisions. Nonetheless, I have a message today, in spite of some of what I have heard, and that is a message of hope.

It is a message of ambition, and it is a message of seeking to do everything in our power to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland, throughout Northern Ireland, on the things that matter most to them. The Programme for Government provides a road map to grow our economy, strengthen our communities and support hard-working families. My aspiration is to have as many happy, thriving people and families as possible in every part of Northern Ireland — this wonderful place that we call "home". I want to create a Northern Ireland that is one of the best small, open and agile economies in the world, if not the best. I genuinely believe that we can do that. We have the opportunity, regardless of how challenging the circumstances may be. The other day, I was at a conference at which somebody referenced the concept of being small enough to do big things. Northern Ireland is small enough to do big things, but that means transformation, and transformation requires investment. Transformation requires difficult decisions to be taken, but I can say to the people of Northern Ireland and to those in the Chamber, hand on heart, that the Executive are working hard to genuinely improve the everyday lives of the people of this place. It is very challenging to respond to so many contributions, but I will endeavour to do so as quickly as I possibly can. I will start with the positive, upbeat and hopeful contribution from the leader of the Opposition, Matthew O'Toole.

There were plenty of reflections from him. I am not sure that I would describe his contribution as either a constructive or a critical one from the Opposition, but he did talk an awful lot about what the Executive ought to do. In order for us to benchmark ourselves against what can be only, I imagine, a document of excellence, I looked up the SDLP's plan. At first, I could not look it up, because the link was broken. The party may need to check its website. I did, however, eventually manage to get my hands on it. There are 14 pages in the plan, two of which are entirely blank. It could be argued that those pages are the best in the plan, but I would not be uncharitable enough to say that, because, in among the 14 pages, there is an entire page containing a picture of Matthew O'Toole. The SDLP is very keen to criticise the First Minister and me for taking photographs, and I am not saying that our Programme for Government would not have been improved by having a full-page picture of Matthew O'Toole, but the SDLP's plan is a short document indeed. Perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that it took the SDLP some eight months to come up with its plan, despite the fact that it was negotiating only with itself. Today is a momentous day, and not just because of the substance in the Programme for Government. Yes, the document has ambition and quality, but it is a momentous day because the four Executive parties have agreed on prioritisation. We talk an awful lot about delivery, and delivery is key, but, let us be realistic, it will not be delivery of the full Alliance Party manifesto and its aspirations. It is not going to be delivery of the full Sinn Féin manifesto or the full DUP manifesto. Rather, the document contains the areas that the four parties can agree to prioritise and focus on, and that means compromise. I turn now to the contribution from the Chairperson of the Committee for the Executive Office. First, I extend my thanks to the Committee for all its work. It is very tricky to coordinate all the different responses across many different policy areas, some of which fall outside the Committee's remit. The Chairperson raised a number of important points, particularly about the well-being indicators and how we measure the document's success. There is a range of targets and objectives in it. Some will simply require additional funds, and that is a challenge for me, the First Minister and the entire Executive to meet. We have made a commitment to do what we can to drive efficiency and transformation in Departments. We have committed in the document to creating a delivery unit, which will be very much about determining how we can do things differently. How do we do them better? How do we free up the money that we need in order to invest in the prioritised areas? The document mentions the agreement to create an office of AI and digital to use innovation and technology to drive efficiency and to find a better way of doing things. None of those things will be done tomorrow or next week, and we know that. The Programme for Government is not going to find significant savings in that time, but we must work together to turn the curve on what we want to achieve, should it be by addressing the mental health of the people of Northern Ireland, ensuring the affordability of childcare, driving down health waiting lists, growing our economy, providing good jobs or creating opportunities for all our young people, no matter in what part of Northern Ireland they live.

I thank the Member for his comment. We have a fantastic aerospace and defence industry in Northern Ireland, so much of which concerns supporting people to secure peace. We all want to see peace. We want to see a peaceful outcome negotiated, but we should support our industry and be proud of its world-class products and the contributions that they make in very important areas. The Chairperson of the TEO Committee went on to speak in her party capacity. She welcomed the publication and said clearly that government needed to be fit for purpose: that is absolutely true. We hear, time after time, so many people calling on the Government to increase bills for ordinary working families across this place. Our responsibility to the people must be to do government better and make sure that, as custodians of the public purse, we invest the money that we get for public services in a way that gets the best outcomes possible. Our government and our processes must be fit for purpose. Philip McGuigan spoke from a health perspective and referenced health inequalities. We know that a key part of the agenda has to be the prioritisation of tackling health waiting lists and transformation in our health sector. That is the number-one issue that is brought up with me when I go about in my constituency of Lagan Valley. I hear all the time about access to GPs, people sitting on waiting lists and the pain and issues that people face day in, day out. Let us be clear: it is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to me or to the First Minister. I do not believe that it is acceptable to any one of us in the House. We understand that, for those individuals, as Diane Dodds referenced, it is personal. If a person is living in pain week in, week out and month in, month out and being told that their operation or intervention will not happen for many months or years, that causes a despair that we can do something about. That is why we will use the new delivery unit to support the Health Minister to find new ways of working. We will do our best, working with the Finance Minister, to secure additional resource that is ring-fenced for those interventions in the Department. We recognise that, yes, health is the key priority in the document. We need to drive down those lists. Further to that, we need transformation to prevent what has happened with those lists from happening again. That will be critical. Deborah Erskine spoke as Chairperson of the Infrastructure Committee, and I thank her for her contribution. We hear all the time about potholes on roads, schools that need interventions and making sure that the capital projects that we invest in come in on time and on budget. I have said before in this place that, if we can bring in capital projects on time and on budget, that will free up much more capital resource with which we can do more. We know that the demand for capital investment always outstrips the capital that we have available. It is not only that: through the investment strategy for Northern Ireland, which we hope to bring to this place in the next number of weeks, we will seek additional capital for that budget to help with the £26 billion of capital investment for infrastructure that we predict over the next 10 years. I look forward to discussing that issue in the House in due course. Robbie Butler spoke from his perspective as Chair of the Agriculture Committee. I pay tribute again to all the incredible work that our farming community does. It is a challenging time for our farming community. Many people either do not want to hear that or just want to dismiss it. We should not dismiss it, because, at the heart of farming, are farming families who are out from early in the morning to late at night in all weathers and in a tough financial environment, doing what they can to provide locally sourced, locally grown, locally produced, high-quality food. The security of food supply is such a critical issue in a globally unstable context. It is right and proper that we look at all those issues, including, as the Member mentioned, the impacts of planning and delays on our farming and agri communities and how the just transition can make sure that, as we move towards some of our environmental aspirations, we do so in a way that does not disproportionately burden our farmers. Colm Gildernew spoke from the communities perspective. He talked about the anti-poverty strategy and other strategies, including language strategies, and about the ongoing housing crisis and access to affordable housing. That goes to the heart of what we are trying to achieve with the Programme for Government, because the impact of not having a warm and secure home is huge. It is huge for the whole family, and it is significantly detrimental to children and young people who grow up in that environment. It is one of the keys that unlock children's ability to thrive. We want those children to fulfil their potential, contribute to society and live happy and thriving lives. That also touches the core of health inequalities. It is a perfect example of how other departmental policies are critical to what we are trying to do. We know that there are far too many people with avoidable illnesses on health waiting lists. If we catch those avoidable illnesses early, we can change some of the issues and have a transformative effect. Mike refers to the "Shift left" agenda for tackling public health issues: that is critical. It will not take only the next number of years: it is an agenda for the next five, 10, 20 or 30 years in this place. We may not see the results in health waiting lists until we are 10 or 20 years down the line, but, my goodness, we know that it is truly transformative. We know that making those interventions and supporting those children pre-birth and through birth and early childhood is critical to their life outcomes. Diane Forsythe spoke from a finance perspective because the Chairperson of the Finance Committee spoke as leader of the Opposition. One of the big challenges that we have faced is undoubtedly the lack of a multi-year Budget. We are dictated to in that because of the Treasury's cycles. The First Minister and I have raised that issue directly with the Chancellor, and we believe that she wants to move to multi-year Budgets. There is no doubt that that would make our planning much better. When that happens, we will — this is a commitment to the House — revise our targets and plans and look at our Programme for Government in the context of that multi-year Budget so that we can look ahead not just to what we are committing to this year but to what we are committing to in year 2, year 3 and, hopefully, beyond.

2,232 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:07 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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