Debate contribution: Poverty: North Down

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 9 December 2025.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

9 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Poverty: North Down

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5296636

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Principal — "Principal"? — Deputy Speaker. I have given you a promotion, Mr Deputy Speaker. Obviously, I am not a Member for North Down, but I am a Member for the Strangford constituency, which is next door to North Down and shares one of its council areas, Ards and North Down Borough Council. As has been said by everyone here, poverty is a scourge on our society. More and more people who work are on universal credit and need the support of our Government in order to get by. We have children living in poverty, we have middle-aged people living in poverty and we have a growing number of older people living in poverty. I know that the Minister is due to come forward with the final anti-poverty strategy. Other strategies such as the fuel poverty strategy are due to come forward. There is much that we need to do. We cannot keep depending on the community and voluntary sector to pull the Assembly out of a hole when it comes to poverty. As many of us will know through our constituency offices, the Bryson scheme opened recently. Within a week — I tell a lie: it was not a week; it was two days — the vouchers issued to my office to help people who live in poverty with their electricity bills were gone. Fifty vouchers were snapped up just like that. I could have given out another 150 vouchers if I had had them. The food bank is constantly giving out vouchers for food parcels and is asking people what they need help with in order to prevent them from having to use a food bank. To be honest, it all comes back to one thing: they do not have enough money. There are many people who try their very best, but, after they have paid their rent, their electricity bill and their gas or oil bill, they have nothing left at the end of the month. That is what we have come to in Northern Ireland. I know that the Minister is determined to look at fraud, but not everyone who is on benefits is a fraudulent person. They simply need help from us to keep going. Costs and the cost of living have continued to rise. As we have seen, the local housing allowance (LHA) has not kept in line with housing benefit rates or private rented sector rates. There are issues. The number of people who call all our offices to reach out for help is incredible. From working in the constituency next door to North Down, I know that that is the case there too. Mr Chambers spoke about the Kiltonga centre. I know a mum-of-six who was recently offered support through the Kiltonga centre. I was amazed that it was able to deliver that. That support was not available anywhere else. I encouraged her to go forward for discretionary support, but, because she had had a loan before, she was out of the system. She has six children. As we know, the two-child cap is going, thank goodness, so she will see some light at the end of the tunnel, but it will not solve her problems. Thanks very much to all those who work for the community and voluntary sector organisations. They, too, are living in poverty, because many are paid the minimum wage. To those whom we in the Assembly depend on to see people living in poverty through the winter and the school holiday period, when there is no help with hunger, I say, "Thanks". I am so sorry that they live on the minimum wage. I would love to see that improve, because they are as important to me in my work as an MLA as a GP. They are vital to keeping people well in our community. The stress that is placed on constituents in North Down and elsewhere because of poverty is unimaginable to someone like me.

I certainly will.

I thank the Member for her intervention. I will confirm that by saying that the food banks that I know, which work extraordinarily hard, are not required to report paramilitary lending and that possibly being the reason why someone is in debt.Paramilitaries see themselves as the solution, the helper, the people who will step in when there is nobody else to provide that help. We do not lift data that enables us to say how many people are borrowing money from paramilitaries. I know for a fact that paramilitary lenders were sitting in a car outside a North Down and a Strangford constituency food bank and support system, watching to see who was going in, and saying to them afterwards, "I can lend you fifty quid" or, "If you put in for discretionary support, we'll help you fill out the form. You give us fifty quid, and you'll get the rest". That is non-stop, and the pressure that it puts on some communities is unbearable. That is where we need to work together. That is a solution that should not exist for someone who is living in poverty. We need to make sure that, when we fund and support those community and voluntary organisations, we support them to stop that activity. It is important. Our local police also have a role in that. I say this to all of our community and voluntary organisations: I know that you are on the front line, and I know that you find it tough, but we need you. I only hope that, with the anti-poverty strategy and fuel poverty strategy coming forward, there will be help for the too many people in Northern Ireland living in poverty.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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