Debate contribution: Child Poverty

Debate contribution by Mr David Brooks on 14 October 2025.

MLA

Mr David Brooks

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

14 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Child Poverty

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5180698

Read the official Assembly record

Text

No one in the Chamber will be content with the statistics that we will hear from many Members in the debate. Some of the statistics that I was going to use have been mentioned already. Nevertheless, we must be mindful that behind each number that we hear is a person and a family. They are statistics that must challenge us all. It is also clear that tackling child poverty cannot be achieved by one Department acting alone. The task is multifaceted, and, as such, it requires a cross-Executive, cross-society approach. Poverty is not simply about income; it is about housing, health, education, employment and opportunity. That is why the Executive's draft anti-poverty strategy is the right direction of travel. For too long, progress in that area has been hampered, fragmented and delayed. As noted already, the Public Accounts Committee report made it clear that previous child poverty strategies have been characterised by failure, with poor monitoring and accountability and a lack of effective delivery. This party and this Minister are determined to do things differently. Since taking office, Minister Lyons and his Department have worked intensively to bring forward a realistic framework that seeks to address the symptoms and the root causes of poverty. It is about helping families now but also about creating the conditions where future generations do not fall into poverty in the first place. That means supporting parents into work, raising skill levels, improving childcare and reducing the barriers for disabled people. The Minister's disability and work strategy commitment to help 50,000 more disabled people into work by 2036 and reduce the disability pay gap is an example of targeted practical action that will make a difference to family incomes. As has been mentioned, childcare is one of the biggest pressures on working families. The DUP Education Minister's childcare subsidy scheme has already begun to deliver on this party's commitments by reducing bills by 15%, and that support, we know, will extend further. By the way, the Education Minister is on record as having said that he can do more, more quickly, but it will require investment. Those on the Benches opposite who challenge the Minister to do more are, I hope, battering down the door of the Finance Minister to ensure that the finances are put in place, because it is the same Members across the way who would have this Minister spending hundreds of millions of pounds on Casement Park. We have to make decisions — hard decisions — about where we want money to be spent.

Yes.

The point remains that, where you have hundreds of millions of pounds and people are talking about how they want more — that is fine; we would all like more — we all know that it is not always about the slicing of the pie: it is that the pie is not big enough and the resources are not there. Difficult decisions need to be made around resourcing, and those who, for the cameras, ask for more and say that more should be done should also be honest enough to say that the resourcing has to come from Finance to make those things possible.

I will not; I need to make progress. The Education Minister has also raised thresholds for free school meals and uniform grants, linking future increases to inflation and ensuring that support keeps pace with rising costs. The expansion of full-time preschool provision will give more children the best start in life. Those measures, taken together, represent the most significant enhancement of early years investment in Northern Ireland for decades, and they show what is possible when Departments work together around shared priorities. We should also acknowledge the continuation of the welfare mitigations until 2028 — a decision made by Minister Lyons to give families much-needed stability and protection from the harshest impacts of UK-wide welfare reforms. Some have criticised the draft strategy for not including targets at this stage, but the Minister has said that those targets will come in the action plan once the delivery mechanisms and budgets are properly aligned. That is a responsible and evidence-based approach. We have seen elsewhere that simply throwing money at the problem has not helped. The Scottish system has been mentioned: £471 million annual spend on a Scottish child payment that has done little to move the dial in poverty and has been inconsistent across different regions of Scotland. I welcome the Minister's ambition and support his compassionate approach, but I also welcome the fact that his approach is practical and realistic, not promising that which is far beyond our means. Those pledging more must also consider how that can be paid for as a significant recurring cost. Again, tackling poverty and child poverty must be the responsibility of the entire Executive. It cannot be left to one Department or Minister. Our children deserve the same opportunities as those anywhere else in the UK: the chance to grow up healthy, educated and with a route to fulfil their potential future. That is what the anti-poverty strategy seeks to achieve and what the Minister seeks to achieve, and I will be behind him every step of the way.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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