Child Poverty: North Belfast

Adjournment – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:15 pm on 24 September 2024.

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Photo of Steve Aiken Steve Aiken UUP 2:15, 24 September 2024

In conjunction with the Business Committee, the Speaker has given leave to Nuala McAllister to raise the topic of child poverty in North Belfast. You have up to 15 minutes, Nuala.

Photo of Nuala McAllister Nuala McAllister Alliance

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for Communities for coming to the Adjournment debate, and I thank MLAs, particularly those from outside North Belfast, for staying for it. I am sure that a lot of the issues that we will discuss today are not new to anybody, but it is important that we highlight them and make them a priority, particularly as this debate follows the publication of the draft Programme for Government (PFG), the report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) and the Cliff Edge Coalition briefing on child poverty in Northern Ireland, not to mention the fact that child poverty is not decreasing.

I will focus for a moment on the Audit Office report. It highlights the fact that 29% of children are living in poverty in North Belfast. To state that in even more stark terms, that is 7,200 children. In our constituency offices, we see that manifest in many ways. We also see it manifest across the board and across every area of Executive responsibility. I will take the opportunity to focus on some of those elements of the report. I hope to hear from the Communities Minister, but I also hope to put pressure on all other Ministers to make tackling child poverty a priority.

I will start with housing. There was an Adjournment debate on housing in North Belfast some months ago. Carál Ní Chuilín secured the debate. Issues were raised in it that were not new to all of us. One such issue was the outcomes and consequences of poverty. We cannot help bring people out of poverty if we do not give them suitable housing in which to live. We hear every day in our constituency offices about people living in housing poverty, and many of those affected are children and young people.

If a young person has no suitable safe place to sleep at night — somewhere that is their haven — how can they be prepared every day for school or interactions with their peers when they live with the pressures at home and see those through the eyes of their parents or caregivers?

We also see many health inequalities when it comes to poverty, and I will talk about some of them. Air pollution is more rife in impoverished areas, for example, in areas of North Belfast, than it is in affluent areas because of dense inner-city living, and that can exacerbate health inequalities. We might not see it now in the kids who come to our constituency offices with their parents, but you can bet that, in 10 to 15 years, some of them will have conditions such as COPD. I know that a lot of us get a lot of constituents coming through our offices who are dealing with that, and some of it is because of where they live.

Another issue is speech and language development. We know that it is important to read to children and to engage and have eye contact with them. However, when families across all constituencies are faced with problems and difficulties every day, it is not so easy to tackle those issues, especially if you are on your own.

Below my office in North Belfast is a Sure Start. Sure Starts are invaluable in every constituency. I pass one every day on my way to my office, and I see the people coming and going from it. I speak to the staff there, who often refer people upstairs and vice versa. They have told me about the health inequalities such as obesity, for example, because of the rising price of food and the fact that people are not able to afford the right food to cook for themselves. There is also a rise in malnutrition. In fact, over two years ago, a leading consultant at the Royal Victoria Hospital said that she had witnessed a young child stuffing food down their nappy in order to keep it, which is horrific. This is not just something that is talked about on the news; we see it in North Belfast.

That brings me to my next point about food parcels, food banks and vouchers for food parcels. We all give those out at our constituency offices. I do not know about the rest of you, but it is increasing in my office every day. The people whom we see time and again are single mothers, more than any other category in North Belfast. We do not just offer food parcels; we offer referrals to the family support hubs at the Vine Centre, the Ashton Centre or the citizens advice bureau in Rathcoole. Across North Belfast, there are people willing to help, but they are not going to get to the root of what causes poverty and how to lift people out of it.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has tried to put a focus on the fact that poverty results in more health inequalities. It said that, per 1,000 live births, the regional infant mortality rate in the most deprived areas — North Belfast is number two — was 1·1 percentage points higher than in the least deprived areas. That is a sad indictment of our failure to deal with child poverty.

The Department for Communities' 'Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report, 2022/23' said that 24% of children were living in relative poverty in 2022-23, compared with 18% in 2021-22. It would be interesting to see whether the Department has statistics that further drill down into each of the constituencies. I know that the Audit Office report and the Cliff Edge Coalition's briefing had those statistics. It is important that we collect that data, because it informs our policies moving forward.

I have talked about housing and health, but education also has a role to play. I know that many of us are contacted by constituents who are not able to access free school meals. How somebody is not able to access free school meals nowadays is beyond me, but it is because they were not aware of it and are not able to access the tools online at home. The fact that they have to come to the likes of a constituency office to do that is really sad. However, we do that every day, because it is important that everyone gets the help that they deserve and absolutely need. That safety net is and should be there.

As I said, it is not just a single-Department issue. I know that we have the Communities Minister here, but I am talking about social services as well. One in 20 young people in the Water Works ward in North Belfast is under the care of the state. That is one in 20 people. Think about it: a classroom has 30 children — some have 20 if they are divided amongst two — but that means that at least one child in every class in that ward is under the care of the state.

A lot of the time, they are in state care due to poverty and their families not having the tools to help themselves.

Another issue is mental health and addiction, which is another effect of poverty and the fact that we do not have the right services to help people. I am glad that the Minister has come to the Chamber, but, as I said, it is also an Education, Health and Justice piece. Most importantly, we need to ensure that the anti-poverty strategy is implemented and prioritised across the board and that Sure Start, the pathway fund, Bright Start, Toybox and all the other schemes that are so important get the recognition that they deserve and the investment that they need. Investment does not necessarily mean more money; it can mean raising awareness of what people are able to access.

Yesterday, Alliance launched our policy paper on universal credit and the five-week wait. In North Belfast, more people are migrating to universal credit, so we have more cases and are helping more people with that. Those people, who are on the poverty line, are waiting for five weeks and being pushed further into poverty. We have proposals that are not just about cash injections but about helping people to become more aware of the contingency fund, for example. Let us face it: the two-child cap on benefits and tax credit needs to go. The Government have a role to play. Despite what they said about not wanting to abolish the two-child tax credit limit, the Labour Government need to look again at the people whom they represent and make the move. It would be one of the biggest ways to help lift children out of poverty.

I speak today about North Belfast because it has the second-highest level of deprivation, but I also want to reflect that West Belfast has the highest level by four percentage points. It is even worse than North Belfast. It is important to every one of us. When you see it every day in your constituency office and all that you can do is help people in the short term, it is not enough. We need a long-term solution. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on any of the short-term and long-term measures that can be implemented. I also want to hear how we can, on an all-party basis, through the entire Executive using the Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015, use all the tools to tackle and end child poverty, not just in North Belfast but in every constituency.

Photo of Steve Aiken Steve Aiken UUP

Thank you very much, Nuala. All other Members from the constituency will have six minutes in which to speak. Every other Member will have five minutes.

Photo of Carál Ní Chuilín Carál Ní Chuilín Sinn Féin

Thank you, Nuala, for securing an Adjournment debate on the issue. I am sure that Nuala and others would agree that providing an anti-poverty strategy and resolution is a cross-departmental issue: it absolutely is. Certainly, DFC is taking the lead on it, but this goes as far back as the Good Friday Agreement — half of those in the Chamber probably will not remember it — which included a section on bringing forward an anti-poverty strategy. It is another outstanding commitment that we have been waiting for. Certainly, the current British Government appear to be following in the footsteps of their Tory partners. Their announcements on the winter fuel payments, not scrapping the two-child benefit cap and all the rest just do not augur well for people who are living in already challenging circumstances.

Poverty levels in the constituencies of North Belfast, West Belfast, as Nuala pointed out, and Foyle — Sinéad is here from Derry — have remained persistently high and in the top 10% of the most deprived. It will take an all-Executive approach to eradicate poverty. In our constituency of North Belfast, New Lodge 1 is ranked fifth; seventh is Crumlin 2; ninth is Ardoyne 3; fourteenth is New Lodge 2; fifteenth is New Lodge 3; nineteenth is Duncairn 1, and twenty-first is Water Works 1. It is a depressing read. Hopefully, the Minister will bring the strategy forward under the social inclusion strategies soon. I look forward to hearing what he has to say today.

The cost of living has been discussed in the Chamber and others across the board. It has been incrementally increasing since 2018. Six years later, things are not getting any easier. Wages have not gone up. People are having to wait for five weeks to migrate from different benefits to universal credit (UC) and rely on food banks and, perhaps, loans. That is pushing people into poverty.

The humiliation of poverty is long-lasting. I remember growing up in a house in which most of the women worked because men could not get jobs. I am not being political as such, but there were few jobs for people like my father, who was a skilled engineer, because he was a Catholic. That was a fact when we were growing up. He had to go elsewhere to work. I remember getting what was then a blue dinner ticket for access to free school meals. I remember feeling embarrassed standing beside people who had a pink or green dinner ticket; the stigma of poverty was there. For me, like many of my friends and the people whom I grew up with, that became a way of life.

We are all passionate about different aspects of this. Nuala mentioned something that I have also seen, and it is horrendous. The education maintenance allowance (EMA) for teenage children was removed, but, when it comes to participation in sports, arts and other things, there are children who do not have access to the necessary equipment, even though there are clothes banks, sports banks, music banks and all sorts. That means that a lot of children will not even have aspirations in those areas. There is poverty of aspiration, which is debilitating and horrendous.

Brian will know that, although it is taking a bit of a hammering at the minute, good relations work in North Belfast will, as usual, bounce back. A lot of the youth good relations programmes have food built into them. It is not just about getting the kids in; health and safety and food are now built into those programmes as well, because children are coming to them hungry.

Housing and health are other aspects. There could be three or four generations under one roof, with teenagers and young children sharing one or two rooms. That is humiliating and horrendous. That has been the custom and practice, and I desperately ask that we change it. Accessing affordable housing is a massive challenge across all constituencies, but, in areas where there is big demand, landlords — I will not repeat what I think of most of them — use market forces to squeeze families out. That is horrendous, and it is greed. The impact of that on children's physical and mental health is huge.

Nuala mentioned speech and language. In our constituency, there are long waiting lists for children to access autism assessments, speech and language therapy and dentists. The oral and dental health is horrendous. There is also childhood obesity. In addition, a number of children are on individual education plans while —

Photo of Steve Aiken Steve Aiken UUP 2:30, 24 September 2024

Carál, will you bring your remarks to a close, please?

Photo of Carál Ní Chuilín Carál Ní Chuilín Sinn Féin

— they await diagnosis.

Minister, this is not just your responsibility, but you have the privilege of bringing something forward to address it. We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Photo of Brian Kingston Brian Kingston DUP

I thank Nuala McAllister for bringing the topic to the Floor. As she referenced, the Public Accounts Committee conducted an inquiry into child poverty in Northern Ireland, with the Audit Office publishing the report in March this year. The report stated that the percentage of children in Northern Ireland living in relative poverty is 18%, with 8% having lived in persistent poverty for at least three of the past four years. We note also, as was referenced, that the Cliff Edge Coalition submitted a briefing to the Public Accounts Committee that stated that the number of children in North Belfast living in poverty is 29%, which, after West Belfast, is the highest percentage in any constituency in Northern Ireland. We are aware of the welfare benefits issues relating to that, and we have had debates on those matters, including the two-child limit for those claiming child tax credit, universal credit and the overall benefit cap. We have had debates about whether the Assembly can mitigate and compensate for the decisions made by the Government at Westminster. However, we do not have the welfare benefits budget; that is retained at Westminster. Mitigating those benefit restrictions would cost tens of hundreds of millions of pounds, which would come from the departmental budgets for public services in Northern Ireland. Not surprisingly, no Minister is saying that they could offer such spare finance.

Of course, many initiatives seek to address disadvantage, reduce poverty, promote personal and community development in North Belfast and assist people to move out of poverty. As others said, it is a multifaceted issue, and it requires action from all Departments in association with the voluntary and community sector and the private sector. It is important to recognise that the circumstances in which people grow up can vary greatly. Some will be fortunate and have generally supportive circumstances, whereas others will have more challenging circumstances due to family, personal or community issues. The Assembly's overall aim should be to help everyone to achieve their potential in life and to provide extra support where it is needed to compensate for challenging circumstances.

Child poverty touches many levels of government, as well as the community and private sectors. When it comes to employability, the Department for Communities, as, I am sure, the Minister will mention, provides jobs and benefits offices. I visited the one on the Shankill, and I saw that its staff have genuine care for their clients. They provide one-to-one support for people who are seeking employment. Those offices are supported in the community sector by job assist centres and through the dedicated support of Belfast Works Connect, which reaches people who are deemed to be economically inactive, far from the labour market and in need of the extra support that will help them into training and employment. We all share the concerns about the Shared Prosperity Fund, which is ending at the end of the year. We want to see that extended and renewed in the long term.

Many family support services are also relevant. Under the Departments of Health and Education, at a community level, social services and projects like integrated services for children and young people support families with additional challenges. There is also Sure Start, which supports those essential early years in a child's education. We recognise the dedication of staff and teachers in our nurseries and primary schools and in special needs provision, with the opening of Harberton North Special School and the units in many mainstream schools that now provide for special educational needs. At post-primary level, 11 schools in North Belfast participate in the area learning community, and Belfast Metropolitan College focuses on helping people to achieve their potential in life. In fairness, both Ulster University and Queen's University Belfast have a renewed focus on community outreach and improving the accessibility of higher-level education, which we will all want to work with them on.

In the Department for Communities, the neighbourhood renewal partnerships work in the most disadvantaged 10% of areas, and all of us, as North Belfast representatives, will work with our neighbourhood renewal partnerships and support the desire for a North Belfast community partnership. As was mentioned, housing is a massive issue. At lunchtime, members of the all-party group on homelessness met Grainia Long, the chief executive of the Housing Executive, highlighting the shortage of emergency accommodation and social accommodation. The number of those presenting as homeless increased by 7·3% in Belfast over the previous year alone.

Under the Executive Office, there is support through the social investment fund and Urban Villages. My time is running out, so I will briefly mention the Department of Justice's support for interface and intercommunity work, which is a particularly acute issue in North Belfast at times.The Department for the Economy recognises the importance of developing industrial land for employment purposes and working with the private sector to encourage the creation of good jobs. We recognise that many companies care about corporate social responsibility. The work of voluntary and community sector groups is essential. The city council supports community development, employment agencies and leisure and exercise spaces. The Department for Infrastructure and DAERA —.

Photo of Steve Aiken Steve Aiken UUP

Will the Member bring his remarks to a close?

Photo of Brian Kingston Brian Kingston DUP

The work of providing a positive local environment and public realm is important.

The issue of improving people's opportunities in life and addressing child poverty and poverty generally crosses so many sectors of government, and it is one that we will all continue to work on.

Photo of Gerry Kelly Gerry Kelly Sinn Féin

I also thank Nuala for bringing this important issue to our attention again.

The term to use for child poverty in North Belfast is "staggering". The statistic is that 29% of children live in poverty, as reported by the End Child Poverty Coalition on the basis of research from Loughborough University. In the North, over 20% of children, across all the constituencies, experience poverty.

Several factors contribute to child poverty, as we know, including high housing costs, which has been mentioned a number of times. There is a shortage of available housing, and there are restrictive policies such as the two-child limit on benefits. That policy alone affects over 45,000 children here, pushing larger families into economic hardship.

The growing housing crisis compounds the challenges. There were over 47,000 applicants on the housing waiting list in March this year. The shortage is driving families into unsuitable temporary accommodation such as B&Bs and expensive private rentals. That places financial strain on families, deepening their poverty and widening social inequalities. The lack of stable housing also impacts mental health, particularly for children who face the anxiety and stress of frequent relocations and overcrowded living conditions. Those circumstances not only hinder children's access to education but prevent access to essential healthcare services, perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty and poor social outcomes. Secure housing is foundational to improving living standards and combating poverty.

For children, poverty leads to a higher prevalence of chronic conditions such as asthma, obesity and malnutrition. Studies consistently show that children who live in poverty are more likely to face developmental delays and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Poor housing conditions such as dampness and mould further worsen respiratory illnesses such as asthma.

The intersection of poverty, housing insecurity and chronic illness in North Belfast underscores the urgent need for comprehensive solutions. Addressing those interconnected issues must be a priority for various Departments, as a number of Members have said, to ensure that vulnerable families have the opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty, improve their health and secure a brighter future. Key to that is the anti-poverty strategy, and I take the opportunity to urge the Minister for Communities, as others have done — his is the lead Department — to bring the strategy forward as a matter of urgency and to ensure that it is not only effective but sustainable. That will require buy-in from all Ministers in a joined-up approach to policy development and, importantly, in resources.

The Economy Minister, Conor Murphy, is moving to give our young people the skills, training and opportunities to reach their full potential. That can be achieved by addressing long-standing regional imbalances, investing in our communities and ensuring that employment opportunities pay a real living wage to help raise living standards. Each of those issues is covered in Conor Murphy's economic vision. Since he took office, it is clear that delivering positive change for workers and families is a priority for the Minister.

The anti-poverty strategy is due to be published by the Communities Minister, who must ensure that it, too, contains commitments. The anti-poverty strategy must tackle the widening gap between people's incomes and the cost of living, which has been exacerbated not only by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis but by years of cuts and the gutting of our public services by the British Government.

Policies such as the five-week wait for universal credit, which was mentioned by Nuala, and the two-child limit on benefits have undoubtedly contributed to the rise in child poverty, with over 45,000 children across the North of Ireland directly impacted. It is imperative that we challenge those harmful policies, as the British Government's cuts to social support and underfunding through the block grant formula are deepening poverty.

The First Minister and deputy First Minister and the Finance Minister are pushing the British Government to provide increased resources for the Executive to be able to properly fund our public services.

Ensuring that people have access to advice is essential, particularly during transitional periods and when managing debt. I pay tribute to the incredible work done in my constituency by organisations such as the Ardoyne Association, the Wolfhill Centre and Tar Isteach. A number of other organisations were mentioned, so forgive me for not having the full list. They all do very hard work and very important work. I urge the Minister to ensure that the anti-poverty strategy is bold and forward-thinking. While lifting individuals and families above the poverty line is an essential step, it is equally important to focus on fostering economic growth and creating opportunities that help to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

Photo of Robbie Butler Robbie Butler UUP 2:45, 24 September 2024

I thank Nuala McAllister for securing the Adjournment debate. It is a really important topic. I will speak not from notes but genuinely from my heart on this issue because poverty is an issue that we have debated in this Chamber since I started in 2016. When you think that we live in, perhaps, the fifth biggest economy in the world, it is ridiculous that, in 2024, we have pockets in this country — given its size; we are not very big — where we see young people at birth, pre-birth and through their early lives faced with inequalities that should not exist in this society.

Poverty has many and diverse, but strange, bedfellows, unfortunately. If you are born into poverty, your life expectancy is already reduced. I speak from the position of having family who live in West Belfast, which, obviously, borders Lisburn and Castlereagh, Lagan Valley and North Belfast. I share the name with those family members; they are the Butlers in Highfield, in Belfast. Statistically, because I live in Lisburn, in Lagan Valley, I am expected to live somewhere between 10 or 11 — maybe 13 — years longer than them. I hope that that is not the case, but it is absolutely ridiculous. It is a postcode lottery, and it really is wrong.

I really am glad that we have a Programme for Government. I have no critiques about the content, but I certainly have some critiques about the omissions. I suppose that our Executive can be forgiven for that because we had a compressed time frame to put it together so we had to list a number of priorities that we are going to tackle. However, the Executive cannot be forgiven for this: the missions all begin with the letter "P" — it is like Presbyterian alliteration — and we have "people" "planet", "prosperity" and "peace", but there is not a particular target on poverty. If poverty were there as a particular target, I think that the rewards would be off the charts. As many Members have said, if you live in poverty, you are more likely to suffer from poor mental health. If you live in poverty, you are more likely to be suicidal. If you live in poverty, you are more likely to have a physical disability or a learning disability. If you live in poverty, you are less likely to achieve educationally. If you live in poverty, you are less likely to have a suitable home. If you live in poverty, you are less likely to be contributing to the environmentally friendly nature of climate protection. Poverty has strange and many diverse bedfellows, but none of those bedfellows is worthy of pursuit.

In saying this, I will remain apolitical. I have listened with interest for many years, and I know that Carál Ní Chuilín is absolutely passionate about quality homes. I have loved working with Carál on that issue on different all-party groups. Poverty is a political choice. Everybody is right to point to the previous Conservative Government, their austerity agenda and the changes that have been manifest, but if we do not look at ourselves in this Chamber, when we did not sit for five years out of eight, we neglect the responsibility of political failure here. We are as responsible for the political failure to tackle poverty as any other political agency on these islands, and we need to learn from that. At the weekend, the leader of the DUP hinted that he perhaps would not be bringing the Assembly down. I hope that that applies for any reason, and I hope that, perhaps, at some stage, the Sinn Féin leader can also give this country confidence that tackling poverty and promising our young people a better future will the number-one political priority.

Last night, there was a meeting of an all-party group on political engagement for young people, and the topic was housing and quality homes. Every Member who has spoken in this debate has touched on that issue. That tells me that our young people, who are suffering the burden of poverty, inequity and inequality in respect of suitable accommodation, see that as a pressing priority for the Government.

We have only two and a half years left to get on the rails. We all accept that ending poverty has to be our political aim. It will take time, and it will take political stability, a political will and a singular purpose among everybody in the Chamber. By the end of the debate, I am sure that we will all agree on the sense of direction. I hope that we can keep things on the rails in the Chamber and deliver for the people of Northern Ireland.

Photo of Phillip Brett Phillip Brett DUP

I apologise for not being here for the entirety of the debate: I had some Committee commitments that I could not miss.

North Belfast usually gets a reputation as a place where the political representatives disagree, have different ideals and do not share a common goal. Although I missed much of the important contributions made by the Members opposite and other Members, I guarantee that they raised the exact same issues that I plan to raise. Those are the issues that our communities and constituency offices deal with daily. The five Members elected by the people of North Belfast work together daily on tackling poverty. The North Belfast community groups, which other Members may have mentioned, regularly bring elected representatives from the parties together to tackle poverty. We come together to discuss the collective ambitions and issues faced by those whom we are honoured to represent. Be they from Tiger's Bay, the New Lodge, Rathcoole, Glengormley or anywhere in between, the issues that they face are exactly the same.

With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will highlight a number of things. The community and voluntary sector in North Belfast is made up of the best people who freely give their time daily to try to improve the lives of all those who call North Belfast home. I must pay tribute to Ministers and political parties of all hues who have put together many strategies and initiatives across North Belfast that are making a lasting impact. I think of the neighbourhood renewal partnerships that continue to deliver daily for those most in need. I think of the Building Successful Communities programme that operates in parts of our constituency. It builds much-needed homes to tackle poverty. It invests in education, which is key to ensuring that our young people are lifted up. It also invests in the fabric of our community organisations, which, day and daily, provide the service that all our constituents need. I think of the Urban Villages programme, which my colleague Brian Kingston is heavily involved in. It operates in the Old Park district electoral area across Ballysillan and Ardoyne. It is sponsored by the Executive Office but, day and daily, delivers programmes and community assets that are used to tackle the issues that are rife in our community.

It is important to recognise that progress has been made but that there is much more to do. Nuala, Carál, Gerry, Brian and I will continue in that spirit of cooperation to try to ensure that no person in North Belfast experiences what they have in the past and that, together, we can ensure that North Belfast continues to be the best place to live, work, invest and raise a family.

Photo of Sinéad McLaughlin Sinéad McLaughlin Social Democratic and Labour Party

I, too, commend Nuala for securing the Adjournment debate. Poverty is a blight on our society, whoever it affects and wherever it is found, but it is fair to say that it has a particular effect on children. We know that the first thousand days of a child's life are absolutely crucial to their cognitive and emotional development. That has been powerfully and passionately spoken about by every contributor to the debate. Poverty stifles children's life chances before they have even had a chance. It sets children back from the start of their very young lives and traps the next generation into a vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty that repeats and repeats and repeats.

It is also right to say that North Belfast is plagued by poverty more than most areas in the North. Like the Members for North Belfast, I come from a constituency that is plagued by poverty. It is fair to say that the Members present from North Belfast, as well as Members for West Belfast and Members for my constituency, know all too well the debilitating impact of poverty in our respective constituencies. That is why I talk so much about achieving regional balance. The regional imbalance that we have is often not, as some people would say, between the whole of Belfast and the whole of Derry. It is the difference between the richest areas, concentrated geographically, and the poorest areas. Sometimes, I am asked what that imbalance looks like in poverty terms, and in child poverty terms in particular. For me, it looks like poor children, who are four times more likely to develop mental health issues by the age of 11. It looks like a gap in healthy life expectancy of up to 15 years between the most and least deprived areas, as Robbie said earlier. It looks like a 24% gap in GCSE attainment for children receiving free school meals.

Members from the poorest areas, which are often in North Belfast, West Belfast and Foyle, can all be charged with raising our constituencies every single chance that we get. That is not just because we love our cities and the places that we are from but because they require intervention. We should not be competing with one another. The problem is poverty, and, although the solution is different in the New Lodge, Ardoyne and Creggan, it is a stain on our society that government has not addressed. How therefore do we address it? We invest where the need is greatest, which includes looking at the areas of greatest deprivation and making sure that every single policy, strategy and plan that is produced in this Building is screened on that basis and included on the basis of an assessment. That is policy responsibility and accountability, which is sorely needed and sorely not present.

It means having an overarching policy in the first place. We have no stand-alone child poverty strategy. Although I appreciate that the anti-poverty strategy is part of the social inclusion strategies included in the draft Programme for Government, it is still true that poverty is not one of the Government's nine priorities. It is shocking that it is not a priority, and if it is not a priority, poverty will not be ended for children in North Belfast, West Belfast, Derry or anywhere else. We need to get serious about this. We need to have meaningful and measurable targets and put a plan in place. The Executive must get on with that job and end child poverty once and for all.

Photo of Steve Aiken Steve Aiken UUP

Minister, you have up to 10 minutes.

Photo of Gordon Lyons Gordon Lyons DUP

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I sincerely thank the Member for North Belfast, Miss McAllister, for securing today's Adjournment debate. I appreciate the contributions that have been made. I have listened to them all very carefully and hope to address all the points that have been raised.

Let me say at the outset that poverty is a curse. At its core, poverty is the needs of our people not being properly met. It is a curse on society, and poverty impacts on everyone, everywhere. Members may think that that is a strange statement for me to make, but poverty impacts on all of us, because we are all impacted on by our friends' and our neighbours' situations. We are impacted on as policymakers and decision makers in this place, and there are some things that we might like to do in society but cannot, because of the damaging impacts that poverty brings with it. Tackling poverty, in all its forms, is a key priority for me, and today's debate allows me the opportunity to revisit my commitment to tackling it in a deliberate and decisive way.

There has been much talk about North Belfast in particular, as one would expect during an Adjournment debate on child poverty in North Belfast.

I hope that Members will not mind that I am not going to repeat the statistics that have been outlined today. Child poverty is, of course, a serious issue across Northern Ireland, but I understand that it is particularly acute in North Belfast and the other constituencies that have been mentioned. It exists throughout Northern Ireland, unfortunately, and that is why my approach will be to do everything that I can to tackle it everywhere, in every part of Northern Ireland. That will, of course, apply to North Belfast.

I do not intend to go over the work that is already being done. Mr Brett mentioned excellent work that is being done, especially through the community and voluntary sector: significant actions that are alleviating some of the worst impacts of poverty on North Belfast. More work has been done through the neighbourhood renewal programme, which has provided sustained support to areas of deprivation across North Belfast in 2024-25, with £3·8 million having been invested across 45 projects. Lots is being done, but we all know that there is a lot more work to do.

I will get straight to it and talk about what I intend to do to tackle this issue in North Belfast and across Northern Ireland. I am pleased to announce to the House that I have agreed the next steps on the anti-poverty strategy. I have written to all Departments and stood up the cross-departmental working group so that we can get the buy-in from other Departments that is necessary to make sure that we work collectively to address the issue. That has been raised time and time again during today's debate. Tackling poverty in Northern Ireland is not solely my responsibility. I am in a position to work with Executive colleagues to bring forward the draft strategy that we now have, and we are going out to the other Departments to get their buy-in so that we can move it forward. I hope that it will be agreed by the Executive early in the new year. I want that buy-in from other Departments so that we are ready to go and can start to tackle the issues that we face.

How are we going to do that? There will be three main areas in the strategy. First, I want to make sure that we minimise the risk of falling into poverty. There are a number of ways in which we can do that over the longer term. It is about making sure that children have the best start in life through education. It is about dealing with issues such as debt and ensuring that issues such as disability and addiction are given the proper support that they need, because those are all factors that lead to an increased risk of people falling into poverty.

The second thing that I want to do is make sure that we minimise the impact of poverty when people fall into it. That means ensuring that people have the resources that they need and that, again, they have access to education and the help and support that they need for their physical and mental health; that we address issues of place, crime and safety; and that, importantly, we deal with the issue of housing, including fuel poverty, which is a huge driver of poverty overall.

Thirdly, I want to make sure that we do everything that we can to support people to exit poverty. We need to make sure that people find themselves in the right economic and employment conditions. We need to support people getting back into work to gain employment and to have the further education opportunities and, importantly, the childcare that they need in order to work. Already, you can see that work being done in some of the job programmes that my Department is responsible for. Job Start was a fantastic programme. Just last week, I met a single mum who was on universal credit. She got work through the Job Start programme and is now in work in a situation that works for her and her family. That is why all these issues together are so important.

It is right that we look at this through a whole-system and all-government approach and that we do everything that we can to minimise the risk of falling into poverty, minimise the impact of poverty and also help people to exit poverty. Those will be the three pillars of the anti-poverty strategy. We have actions that we would like to see developed, and we are trying to make sure that we get buy-in from other Departments so that we can push along. I know how long people have waited for the strategy. As Carál Ní Chuilín pointed out, they have been waiting since the Northern Ireland Act was put in place. I am determined that we will deliver it, and I hope that Members will see that this is the way forward to tackle poverty overall. When thinking of child poverty, we cannot separate it from poverty in general, Poverty does not happen in isolation to children; it happens to families and to those in the wider community, so it is right that we take this approach. I will be happy to discuss the strategy further with Members as we make progress on it.

I will address some of the issues that were raised, although I hope that I have done so already. You will have seen my commitment to addressing the issue, but some issues came up time and time again. The first was that the strategy will require cross-departmental work. It is not solely the responsibility of any one Department, but there are a number of things that we need to do. I have heard different Members talk about the importance of education and the poverty of aspiration. I absolutely believe that education is the key to keeping people out of poverty. We need to make sure that education is a focus and a priority, and I intend to focus on childhood education and lifelong learning as part of the strategy. We also touched briefly on the issue of housing, which is fundamental. How can you get the good education that you need if you are in temporary accommodation and constantly moving around? How can you get a good job that will sustain you and your family if you do not have the necessary skills? It is exceptionally important that those issues are addressed, and, as Members can see, they all tie in with each other.

Those are the keys to tackling poverty, which is why I take exception to the comments from Robbie Butler and Sinéad McLaughlin. Poverty has not been left out of the Programme for Government. Now, of course, a consultation is going on, and the Member may respond to it and say that she wants it to be spelt out more clearly. However, let us look at some of the priorities in the Programme for Government: housing is a priority, which we have said is key to tackling poverty; healthcare is a priority, and we have said that it is key to tackling poverty; education is a priority, and it is key to tackling poverty; good jobs are a priority, and they are key to tackling poverty. All the things that we are trying to do will contribute to tackling the issue that has plagued so many areas across Northern Ireland, particularly North Belfast. It is wrong to say that tackling poverty is not in the Programme for Government, because it is, of course, one of our priorities.

My time is coming to an end, but I hope that, in the short time that I had, Members will have seen my commitment to dealing with the issue. We will put in place a strategy that will deal with the key stages, and I hope that we will end up with better outcomes for people right across Northern Ireland.

Photo of Steve Aiken Steve Aiken UUP 3:00, 24 September 2024

Thank you, Minister. I thank Miss McAllister for securing the Adjournment debate and bringing the subject to the Assembly.

Adjourned at 3.08 pm.