Dr.
McCrea: Although it is true that resources and money are
not everything in themselves, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that,
if we do not have the finances to follow and go alongside all the
strategies, we will not be able to carry out the policies
properly?
Mr.
Lidington: We must do both: we must ensure that the
resources are there, and we must therefore have the economy to generate
the wealth in the first place. We must then ensure that the money is
used to make a real difference, rather than being swallowed up to meet
targets that sometimes seem devised to be convenient for the
administrators of a scheme, rather than get to grips with the
complexities on the ground.
I am not
talking only about Shankill; I remember visiting a social
enterprise—the Cresco Trust—in Derry with the hon. Member
for Foyle. It is in his constituency. The people running the training
schemes told me that they were dealing with families in which no one
had had a permanent job for three generations. What we would regard as
the basic disciplines for economic participation—punctuality,
timekeeping, being courteous to customers and colleagues at
work—had never been learned. Even the aspiration to have a job,
let alone a career, that was anything like permanent, had gone, if it
had ever existed. I do not believe that there is a single panacea or
quick fix to such persistent and deep-seated
problems.
Rev.
Ian Paisley: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that money is
needed in the educational field? I am sure that he saw that on his
visit. If there are large classes, certain pupils cannot be handled. We
need smaller classes and
more money in the educational facility, which provides one of the only
disciplines through which such children can have some sort of hope.
Surely, a lot of money needs to be spent on education in Northern
Ireland.
Mr.
Lidington: I do not disagree with the right hon.
Gentleman’s general proposition. We should certainly seek to
direct money, as it becomes available, to the front line of education,
rather than holding it back to run boards and other administrative
organisations. I was struck by a comment that I think came from the
Public Accounts Committee report. It suggested that, although Northern
Ireland was spending as much, or the same, on secondary education as
other parts of the United Kingdom, the per capita spend on primary
education was less. I have not had time to investigate that in detail,
but perhaps it needs to be
addressed. In my visit
to two primary schools yesterday, the concern of the principals about
the challenge of coping with very large numbers of children with
special educational needs came over strongly, and I should like to make
a plea to the
Minister.
Mrs.
Iris Robinson: On special needs and learning
disabilities, is the hon. Gentleman aware that a decision has been made
to freeze new build schools? That decision will impact greatly on
Torbank school in my constituency of Strangford, which should have been
built this year if all things were equal? Now it has been put on hold
and those kids, with so many excessive needs, will be excluded from a
new
build.
Mr.
Lidington: The hon. Lady makes a powerful case on behalf
of her
constituents.
Maria
Eagle: No decision has been made to freeze such
programmes. There has been a short review of existing programmes
arising out of the findings of the Bain
review.
Mr.
Lidington: I am grateful to the Minister for explaining
the Government’s position. I was going to put it to her that
principals are very concerned about the challenge of coping with large
numbers of children with special educational needs. If I wanted to pass
on to her just one message it would be that, in the view of those
schools, there is an unacceptably long delay in accessing the
statementing process, partly because of the difficulty at the first
stage of the process in getting an appointment for a child to be
assessed by an educational psychologist. If she can do anything to
improve matters, it would be a direct benefit to the sort of schools
that I visited
yesterday. I am
conscious of the time, but I want to refer briefly to the third matter
on which the document was lacking: it placed relatively slight emphasis
on the role of the voluntary and social enterprise sector in addressing
the problems that the Minister and I have described. It seems to me
that organisations in that sector have a particularly important role in
addressing the problems of poverty and social exclusion.
Such
organisations can reach out to those who tend to be most mistrustful of
the charms of Government agencies. The long-term unemployed, youngsters
disaffected with society, ex-offenders trying to go straight and
people struggling to overcome addiction to alcohol or drugs probably do
not have much time for officialdom and are not confident with filling
in forms or dealing with officials behind desks. Most employers,
especially people running small businesses, are spending every hour
that they are given battling to keep businesses going and dealing with
customers, shareholders and the tax man. They do not have the time or
the energy to spend on approaching people from hard-to-reach groups in
society. By contrast, social enterprises and voluntary organisations,
whose reason for existing is to help those people, will be able to make
contact. Such
organisations are flexible. Even the most dedicated member of staff in
a Government office usually works a set number of hours and is bound by
a rulebook written either in Whitehall or Stormont. People on the
margins of society often need emotional and psychological support as
much as they need money. Their needs are not confined to office hours
and, again, I believe that the third sector could offer them the way
forward.
Mr.
Anderson: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that public
sector workers will not work beyond their normal
hours?
Mr.
Lidington: No, and I know of many public sector workers in
my constituency and elsewhere who do so. However, people who are bound
by an employment contract and who inevitably work by a set of rules
that are designed to deal equally with everybody cannot always offer an
arm around the shoulder, the emotional support and the ability to be on
call 24/7, all of which are needed when dealing with people at the
margins. The third
advantage of such organisations is their ability to nurture
independence and build social capacity. They are embedded in the
communities that they serve and they aim to deliver not only basic
literacy or numeracy skills, but less tangible qualities, such as
self-esteem and confidence. We need to enable those qualities to
flourish in individuals and, through them, in neighbourhoods if people
in the poorest neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland are to be able to
take responsibility, make decisions about their future and break free
from the culture of dependence that the Minister described.
There is much that the
Government could do to make life easier for the third sector. They
could simplify the fragmented funding flows and the separate bidding
criteria. They could also look at the how the tax and benefit regime
and the planning system could make life easier for voluntary and social
enterprise organisations.
I conclude as I started: there
is much in the report with which I have no quarrel and which I am happy
to support, but important issues that relate to poverty in Northern
Ireland are being underplayed. In particular, we must face up to the
severity of the challenge facing communities on the margins, which are
not being helped sufficiently by the best intentions of Ministers and
their Departments.
Several
hon. Members
rose—
The
Chairman: Order. I have no power to impose a time limit on
speeches, but if I had, it would be10
minutes. 2.32
pm Mary
Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab): I start by congratulating the
Minister: his speech was the first by a Minister to have concluded to
the acclaim of heavenly hosts. Whatever party is going on next door, I
hope that it does not end before the Committee does, so that we have a
chance to join the festivities.
I commend the report and the
work that has gone into it. Trying to tackle poverty is a noble cause
and a huge challenge, and successive Governments here and in the
mainland UK have struggled with it since time immemorial. In 1947, the
Beveridge report identified want, idleness, squalor, ignorance and
disease as the five huge giants, and, as we see in the report before
the Committee today, they have yet to be slain.
I have a personal anecdote to
put our discussion of poverty into context. In October, I took my young
son to Rosslea in County Fermanagh to visit the house where my mother
was born in 1940. It was built by my grandmother and grandfather using
the money that my grandmother had saved while working in domestic
service on the west coast of America. It was a two-bedroomed farm
house, but it is now being used as a barn. It was extremely interesting
and moving to take my young son there and explain to him that the
house, which was little more than a shed, was where his grandmother had
been born. It had no running water, gas or electricity and, most
intriguingly for a four-year-old, no toilet, which led to some
interesting discussions with my uncle in the car on the way there and
back. What is
interesting about the report is that it looks at the different life
cycles of poverty and accurately states that poverty is a generational
issue. People in Northern Ireland have suffered from chronic stress as
a result of the violence endemic in their society over the 30 years of
the troubles, and many of them have been brutalised by that violence.
We know that we have come a long way in the past 60 years, but we also
acknowledge that we have a long way to go
The benefits of the Sure Start
centres are not to be underestimated. It is critical that we bring
children’s services and, just as important, parents’
services together to give parents the best access to full-time child
care. As a working parent, I know that if parents are to enter the
labour market it is imperative that they have flexible child care
arrangements. That will allow them to start work perhaps as
part-timers, but to move on to full-time employment. It is also
important that those parents who do not have English as a first
language have access to the language training that they need.
It is important that we
consider the poverty strategy of providing support for parents. The
Government announced an initiative for England and Wales to support
parents through Parentline. When that initiative was announced, it was
reported in my local newspaper. Two sets of parents immediately phoned
my constituency office asking how they could gain access to the scheme,
as they were desperate for help in
dealing with difficult teenagers. At all stages of a child’s
life, whether dealing with toddler tantrums or teenage tearaways, we
cannot do too much to support parents in the incredibly important job
of bringing up children in the best possible way, giving them the
self-confidence that they need and not waiting until there is visible
evidence of neglect and then relying on social services to step
in. Lady
Hermon: I agree entirely with the hon. Lady about Sure
Start, but as a Labour Member is she not slightly embarrassed by the
fact that, according to the document being debated this afternoon,
Northern Ireland has only 23 Sure Start projects for a population of
about 1.7 million, with a proposal for seven new projects to come into
operation in September 2006?
Mary
Creagh: I take the hon. Lady’s point on
under-provision. However, there are particular issues specific to
Northern Ireland, particularly in connection with the rural population,
that create difficulties—for instance, in which village to put a
Sure Start centre, and how parents from other places will access such
centres. It is easy in areas with a large population to draw a map and
to say that x thousand people live there and that a certain number of
Sure Start centres will be needed. It is right to focus the resources
first in areas of greatest need, because by investing early in those
areas we shall reap the greatest benefit over the longest
period.
The part of
the report that deals with five to 16-year-olds mentions extended
schools, which is vital if we are to allow parents to work and to pick
up their children later. Interestingly, it will provide opportunities
for integrating education outside the school day. It will allow parents
to pick up their children together and for them to meet at the school
gates, and for children to form relationships across traditional
religious boundaries.
I am
interested in the part of the report that deals with entrepreneurship.
Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I was an academic at Cranfield
school of management. We designed programmes for entrepreneurs and we
had a partnership with the Coleraine campus of the university of
Ulster. When I visited Northern Ireland in 1996, a colleague there told
me about the challenges that the university faced. He also told me an
anecdote about the arrival of the Argos superstore in the city. He said
that people were so desperate to get into Argos for the first time that
little children were going into the store, taking catalogues and
selling them for a fiver to people further down the queue. That story
has stayed with me; it is a fantastic example of the entrepreneurial
spirit of people in Northern Ireland, but that spirit needs to be
nurtured and developed and to be set free. In that respect, I pay
tribute to the work of the Shell Livewire programme and the
Prince’s Trust.
Two issues are missing from the
report. The first is safety in the home and on the roads. As far as I
can see, nothing in the report mentions the critical fact that people
living in poverty and social exclusion are far more likely to be
victims of accidents inside and outside the home than those with higher
incomes. That is particularly true of children in relation to household
accidents. Children living in lower-income areas are20 times
more likely to die in a house fire and 13 times more likely to die in a
road traffic accident than children living in other areas.
I notice that the human rights
part of the report says that it has no human rights implications. In a
narrow, legalistic sense, that is true, but as the broad base of human
rights begins with the right to life, the Government should be serious
about reducing the number of avoidable deaths and injuries to young
children through road accidents and fires. I draw hon. Members’
attention to the “hot water burns like fire” campaign to
put thermostatic mixing valves in
homes.
Dr.
McCrea: Would it not be of great assistance to many
families in danger if the Housing Executive ensured that every house
under its control had fire
alarms?
Mary
Creagh: Again, we need to target resources to the areas
that need them most. I am not clear—perhaps the Minister will
respond—where fire safety devices are installed. Two children
from Wakefield died tragic deaths in Corfu. In another, totally
unreported incident a couple of weeks later, an elderly couple aged 88
and 90 were poisoned by carbon monoxide as they sat in front of their
own coal fire with the glass doors open. In effect, there have been
four deaths in Wakefield from carbon monoxide poisoning.
That issue requires attention,
but another is crucial, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for
Foyle and for Belfast, South for their support on it. The “hot
water burns like fire” campaign, which I have been leading in
the House, is an attempt to encourage the national Government to
install thermostatic mixing valves in homes. The Scottish Executive
passed a law with effect from 1 May 2006, but I believe that
legislation is needed for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I hope
that the Assembly will consider that when it sits again in
March. Brief and
fleeting references have been made to tourism. Northern Ireland has
huge potential for tourism, which it is vital for the country’s
development. Thousands of people visit each year. Given Northern
Ireland’s compactness, it is easy to see quite a lot in a short
time, whether it is the glories of the North Antrim coast or the
wonders of Fermanagh, which I saw when I visited in October. I pay
tribute to the village heritage centre in Rosslea, which is run by an
inspiring woman called Annie McGinnerty. Rosslea is a tiny village, but
people come there from all over the world to see photos of their
parents’ and grandparents’ weddings, school days and
farming days. The centre runs on a wing and a prayer.
Investment is
needed in such precious cultural heritage. Employment training can be
provided for young people, and those in border areas have the
opportunity for cross-border movement and employment on both sides of
the border. If I had not visited the heritage centre, I would have been
unaware of the fact, which I am only too happy to share with the
Committee, that there are at least 10 implements for cutting
peat. I shall say a
final word on home safety as it relates to pensioners. Slips, trips and
falls account for 60 per cent. of all accidents and injuries suffered
by people over 65. For many elderly people, a fall in the home can be
fatal if it breaks a hip. People’s homes are a difficult area
where Government fear to tread, but if we are serious about reducing
accident rates and improving quality of
life, we must integrate the health aspects and deal with this issue as a
cross-cutting issue. Tackling poverty is about the pursuit of both
individual and collective happiness. Eliminating poverty will allow
people to live in safety and security, to reach their potential and, as
we have heard from the Minister, to live
longer. We
have reduced inequality and we hope through the strategy to increase
collective, community solidarity and allow people to have intercultural
and multicultural experiences. Sometimes we say politics is not so much
a sprint as a marathon; in Northern Ireland, it can sometimes feel on
all sides like an Ironman endurance test, but I look forward to the
next stage in 2007, when the devolved institutions are restored. I hope
that that will bring the political stability and economic prosperity
that has been denied to the people of Northern Ireland for so
long. 2.46
pm Mr.
Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP): It is a pleasure to
follow the hon. Member for Wakefield. I share her fondness for the
county of Fermanagh, as it is the area where I was brought up and
schooled and where my parents still live. She is quite right to point
to the attractions of that area and its potential, particularly for
tourism. I wish her many happy trips to Fermanagh in the
future. It is a
pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Alan, and to
welcome the Grand Committee to the City hall. This is an historic
sitting and we are delighted to have your presence here today. The City
hall has witnessed many important debates and significant events. It is
a very important building in the history not only of this great city of
Belfast, but of Northern Ireland. It celebrates its 100th birthday this
year and it is appropriate that it should host the Grand Committee in
this its centenary
year. This
is the first time I have seen the City hall in its present
configuration, with Democratic Unionist members sitting on the Sinn
Fein benches and the SDLP sitting in the Democratic Unionist
benches—conversions all round. The hon. Member for South Down
sits in a seat which I have been honoured to occupy for 22 years as a
member of the council, and the hon. Member for Belfast, South occupies
the seat which the hon. Member for East Antrim has occupied for 24
years. It is a particular pleasure to see them in their places. It is
particularly welcome to see the Labour party and the Government
converted to the Unionist benches. The Conservatives have perhaps drawn
the short straw by sitting in the Alliance party benches, which should,
of course, be occupied by Members of the Alliance party’s sister
party, the Liberal Democrats; however, they are not present here today.
That is a surprise given the close ties to Northern Ireland that the
hon. Member for Montgomeryshire has. It is indeed a pleasure to have
the Grand Committee meet here in the City hall
today. The
subject that we are debating is extremely important. The Minister has
pointed to its cross-cutting nature and the priority that the
Government give to it. The statistics bring home to us the extent of
the problem. According to the Government’s own measurements,
327,000 people in Northern Ireland are living in poverty, including
102,000 children and 54,000 senior citizens. Of those people, 284,000
live in the most deprived areas, two of
which are in my constituency in Belfast, North, in the Shankill area.
The report points to the fact that the people living in those areas
have a life expectancy which is much lower than the average elsewhere
in Northern Ireland. That emphasises the necessity of all of us taking
the issue seriously and ensuring that appropriate action is taken to
put the problems right as quickly as
possible. It is clear
that poverty, social exclusion and deprivation are not confined to one
side of the community. All the evidence points to the fact that they
affect both sides of the community. The four most deprived parts of
Northern Ireland are in this city of Belfast, in north and west
Belfast, although that is not to say that there is no social
deprivation and exclusion elsewhere—of course there is,
particularly in rural areas and the west of the Province. However, the
Whiterock, Falls, Shankill and Crumlin wards in north and west Belfast
are the four most deprived wards in Northern Ireland. Two of the wards
are staunchly Unionist and Protestant, and two are staunchly
nationalist and Roman Catholic, so these issues affect the entire
community in Northern
Ireland. Having said
that, my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East made a good point in
an intervention when he said that often the poverty and social
exclusion in Protestant areas can be masked by dint of the fact that
the indices used to measure social deprivation, social exclusion and
the rest do not fully and adequately take into account that sort of
deprivation because of geographical factors. Larger areas than I
believe are appropriate are used, so within them are subsumed small
pockets of deprivation, particularly housing estates. As a result,
small areas can be overlooked when it comes to setting
priorities.
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