Debate contribution: Local Growth Fund

Debate contribution by Ms Claire Sugden on 21 October 2025.

MLA

Ms Claire Sugden

Party at the time

Independent

Date

21 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Local Growth Fund

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5197408

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the motion because it speaks to a growing concern in communities across Northern Ireland, namely the uncertainty that community and voluntary sector organisations are facing and the real fear about what happens when the funding runs out. In my 10-plus years as a Member, those organisations have been treated as an optional extra because they have never been supported in a way that is sustained and continuing. Yet they deliver services, which government depends on but cannot provide because it does not have the capacity, that range from employment to training, mental health, family support and tackling loneliness. Those organisations reach out to people whom public services cannot, and they do so with compassion, expertise and knowledge of those people. Their goodwill can go only so far, however. Staff and volunteers are exhausted and fed up. They are trying to plan from year to year, with no certainty about their future. In my 10-plus years as an MLA, I have heard every year about organisations putting their staff on protected notice because funding certainty just does not exist. Beyond the loss of jobs and community services, gaps are being left that government is not filling. If anything, those gaps are widening, because budgets across the board are being cut.

In my constituency, I see every day the difference that organisations in the community and voluntary sector make. Indeed, when I became an MLA, I identified as many of those groups as possible and set out to meet every one of them, and there were hundreds. Regrettably, since COVID, we have lost some of the strength in our community and voluntary sector, so funding is more critical now than ever. We hear every day about older people feeling lonely and about people in rural communities not being able to access services, meaning that they do not even try to access them. For a region in a Western democracy, it is not good enough that people feel that they are not being served and that they just have to get on with it. Unfortunately, they cannot do that. Those organisations support families, provide training opportunities, promote well-being and create spaces where people can connect. I feel that, to an extent, we are losing our communities because we are losing those organisations. As a mother of a two-year-old, I know that it takes a village to raise a child, but that village is our community and voluntary sector. We want to understand why people have mental health problems and why we have issues with parenting and behaviour right across society. The reason is that we are losing our sense of community. The support does not exist any more. The Northern Ireland Executive and the UK Government really need to return to the issue, because it is indicative of some of what we are seeing in society. More often than not, groups in the community and voluntary sector are not paid the attention that they deserve, simply because they quietly work away in their communities doing the things that, unfortunately, do not make the headlines. Their good work is not talked about enough. I join others across the Chamber in expressing how grateful I am to the community and voluntary sector in Northern Ireland, but I fear that, if we do not start funding it appropriately and in a sustained way, we will lose those groups and no longer be able to talk about them. Today, we are debating the importance of various funds, the benefits that they provide and, indeed, the shortfall that will be created if we do not find some form of replacement funding. Perhaps we are not appealing to the right Minister today and should instead have the Minister for Communities responding to the debate. We need to recognise our community and voluntary sector and the services that it provides. I support the motion. Although I am calling on the British Government to take action, I also call on our Executive to start taking responsibility, because we cannot keep blaming London every time that such issues arise. We have not meaningfully supported and invested in our community and voluntary sector in the way in which we should have done this year. That is one issue, but it is one of many. I encourage the Minister of Finance and the Executive to look to the community and voluntary sector, if for no other reason than to balance the books, because the Minister does not have the money to provide the services that the sector offers. We should therefore be supporting it. It is a case of invest to save, Minister, so it is over to you.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:32 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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