Mr.
Hanson: I tried to assure the Committee that the
priorities set out in “Lifetime Opportunities” will be
the Government’s priorities. When we receive the comprehensive
spending review, it will focus on the Government’s key
priorities, of which that is one.
Mr.
McGrady: I thank the Minister for his intervention and
correction, and I hope that what he says comes true. Unless we dedicate
funding and people through the ministerial forum or otherwise, we will
have been windbagging today. We have windbagged about different issues
for different reasons, but the issue under discussion is much too
serious: it is about humanity, our way of life and our society. We need
personal dedication from the Department. The essential factor in the
forum is that the social partners are included and listened to, and
that the cohesion between the Government and their delivery and the
social partners and their delivery is fully harnessed.
The hon.
Member for Belfast, North touched on the community differential to
which I referred earlier. The conflict and division in our society has
led to complications that have resulted in poverty, or to put it
mildly, a lack of opportunity. We must address the rapprochement of our
two communities and the harmonisation of our objectives, and we must
get together to resolve our difficulties and exploit our advantages to
the full.
I noted a comment made by the
hon. Member for Aylesbury about economic growth in Northern Ireland.
One has to be nervous about that growth, because it is not based on
manufacturing, and that is always dangerous. Perhaps it was my mental
translation of what he was saying, but I think he mentioned the theory
that a rising economic tide lifts all boats, as the old clichÃ(c)
goes. I have never believed that. A rising tide does not raise all
boats, unless they are capable of floating. Lots of people in our
society cannot float with that tide. We have to ensure that they have a
vehicle through which they can take advantage of the overall mood and
the economic betterment to which our community can
subscribe. My
time is up, but I should like to say one more thing. In nearly every
one of the report’s four chapters on the different stages of
life, there is a sentence that goes something like this: “A
decent, fuel-efficient house and a safer environment is the right of
all”. Aside from the generality of what we are talking about,
Government policy, particularly in respect of rural planning, will
create housing poverty in rural areas. The consequence will be the
destruction of the rural way of life and the impoverishment, bad health
and all the rest that will flow from it.
I should like
to deal with that in detail, but given your admonishment and mention of
10 minutes, Sir Alan, I shall simply say this. Very recently, the
Affordable Rural Housing Commission was set up in Great Britain, with
dedicated people and funding, to address the twin problems of public
sector rentable social housing and affordable housing for those who
wish to be on the first rung of the property ladder. Under the broad
umbrella of addressing and preventing poverty, I ask the Minister that
such an affordable rural housing commission be set up urgently in
Northern Ireland.
Starting now, let us prevent
what could happen. In general terms, my party has accepted and endorsed
the proposals and more for many years. We shall give our commitment to
addressing and resolving the issues, but we need to deal with the
flaws, failures and absences in the
report. 3.17
pm Sammy
Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP): I join my hon. Friend the
Member for Belfast, North in saying how welcome it is to see the Grand
Committee in Northern Ireland, especially in Belfast. I hope that this
will be one of many times when the Committee comes to conduct Northern
Ireland business here in Northern Ireland.
I am not sure
that we will be able to guarantee the same background noise on every
occasion. When the hon. Member for Aylesbury was speaking, the people
outside tried to fit their noise in with what they believed was
appropriate for the Tory party. They started with hunting horns and
finished with the carol appropriate to the new, caring Tory
party—“Good King Wenceslas Looked Out”. I think
they even included the line, “When a relatively poor man came in
sight”. We cannot guarantee that all the
time. Dealing with
poverty is important for us all. A large section of the
population—whether here in Northern Ireland or in other parts of
the United Kingdom—is increasingly disengaged not only with
politics and
politicians, but with society as a whole. Such people feel that they
have no part in it. For many of them, the day-to-day struggle of making
ends meet means that they do not lift their eyes beyond their
impoverishment. That is not good for the cohesion of
society. The
Minister said that the Government have done a lot. He fell back, of
course, on the old argument that so many bad things happened before his
party came into power that resolving the issues will take ages. People
in Northern Ireland are accused at times of being historical, but it
has rubbed off on direct rule Ministers, who seem to pass all the
problems on to previous Administrations. I would have thought that 10
years was long enough to deal with some of the things that have been
mentioned today. It is a disgrace that 10 years after new Labour came
into power and published the new TSN, and despite new targeting of
social need, there arestill 110,000 youngsters living in
poverty in Northern
Ireland. Let us remind
ourselves what that means. It means that a single parent with two
children lives on £186 per week. For many, that means that the
smallest thing happening in the household becomes a financial crisis.
Buying a school uniform at the beginning of the school year, or paying
for fuel when winter comes becomes a financial crisis. It is little
wonder that attendant problems
follow. Homelessness
among those who have no dependants has risen by 60 per cent. in
Northern Ireland. The Minister pointed out that this year the housing
associations will build 1,500 new houses, but that is against a
background of increasing homelessness. I know that my hon. Friend the
Member for Belfast, North would not say this himself, but when he
occupied in the old Stormont Administration the post that the Minister
occupies today, he was building some 2,200 houses. The sooner he gets
back into that position, the better.
[Interruption.] We are working towards
that. Twenty-four per
cent. of people are still in fuel poverty despite the prominence and
the priority that has been given to it. I could go on with statistics,
but, after 10 years, I do not think that the Minister can pat himself
or members of his Administration on the back and say, “We have
done a good
job.”
Mr.
Hanson: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my speech,
he would have heard me say clearly that a lot has been done and that
there have been improvements, but that many challenges are left. A
revolution will not happen overnight by changing the party, but we can
make a concerted effort to tackle issues over the long term. We are
planning to do that over the next 15
years.
Sammy
Wilson: I have simply tried to inject some balance into
the debate. When the Minister claps his Administration on the back, I
point to the hill that is still to be climbed in tackling poverty. I
accept that there are no instant solutions, but one would expect that a
Government who are taking 42 per cent. of the gross national product in
tax would have sufficient funding to do more than has been done to
date.
I want to deal
with several areas, but I will concentrate on child poverty during the
short time that is available. The Minister said that we cannot have a
revolution and change everything instantly. I accept that, but Save the
Children, which has identified that 110,000 youngsters still live in
child poverty in Northern Ireland—3,700 in my
constituency—indicated that, at one fell swoop,10 per
cent. of those who are currently deemed as living in poverty could be
dealt with by the introduction of two seasonal payments of £100,
in the summer and in the winter, at just the times when many parents go
to advice centres because of their difficulties in funding school
uniforms or winter clothing for
youngsters. The
Minister will probably say that of course there is the social fund, and
there are loans and everything else, but one quarter of applications to
the social fund are rejected, and unless people have been on benefits
for six months, they do not qualify. Even if they qualify, the terms
are so inflexible that they tend to take loans from people who come to
the doorstep offering them. They pay an enormous amount of interest,
but perhaps those loans are more flexible than those through the Social
Security Agency. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s
response and whether the Government are contemplating something along
the lines suggested by Save the
Children. Another
area where the matter can be tackled is in individual schools. I can
think of a number of initiatives that have worked at local level.
Schools have sought to use money from either the school support
programme or the additional money that the Chancellor has made
available to schools. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the
£50,000 average for primary schools and the £200,000
average for secondary schools that the Chancellor announced in his
speech on the pre-Budget report last week will apply to schools in
Northern Ireland. That could give flexibility to school
principals. In one
school in my constituency, the additional money from the school support
programme was used to employ a school-home liaison officer, and the
families of youngsters who were frequently absent were targeted. It was
a matter not just of ensuring that the youngsters came to school and
did not fall behind, but of dealing with issues involving the parents,
some of whom were directed to courses that would help them with their
reading and enable them to help their youngsters with their homework,
and so on. Breakfast was sometimes provided for children who came to
school hungry in the morning. Such local initiatives are best
implemented by schools that see the problems on the ground and can
tailor the initiatives, but that requires funding. I shall be
interested to hear from the Minister whether that additional funding
will be made available to schools in Northern Ireland so that
principals can involve
themselves. The
Minister’s Department has caused some difficulties for community
groups that seek to tackle poverty innovatively. Perhaps because of
lack of long-term commitment to funding for good schemes, the
Department has put some of them in jeopardy. I visited a
“parents and children together” scheme in Carrickfergus
in my constituency not so long ago. On a large public sector housing
estate, a number of families had problems with youngsters going to
school and it was decided to get parents involved. After-school
facilities were provided, but not just to dump youngsters. Parents were
required
to become involved by attending information evenings at which they could
find out what courses were available to them to help with their
youngsters’ education. Sometimes the requirement was as little
as saying to dads, “Come along and take the youngsters out to
play football in the afternoon or on a Saturday morning. That is your
commitment if you want your youngster to come to the scheme.”
Such schemes get parents involved with kids and provide them with role
models. However, innovative schemes to deal with problems at local
level often find that when they get off the ground their funding is
cut. The scheme to which I referred is under threat because of lack of
funding. I listened to
what the hon. Member for South Down said. The strategy is full of
targets, but it lacks the details of how those targets will be met. We
must look at best practice in the statutory and voluntary sectors and
try to build some schemes and policies around those targets to help to
deal with the
problem. I agree with
some of the points that have been made by other hon. Members. It is not
just a case of money. We must raise the aspirations of people such as
youngsters whose parents have never seen education as the way forward.
By getting educational qualifications and achievements they can work
their way out of poverty in the longer term. That sometimes means
starting with youngsters. The new university of Ulster in my
constituency has tried to do that by going to primary schools,
especially difficult ones, through the step-up programme. The Minister
recently funded an extension of that programme to parts of Belfast. I
would like it to be extended further afield.
Last Thursday, I went to the
launch of the sports academy in the university of Ulster, through which
students are also going out to schools such as smaller primary schools
that do not have sporting expertise. The students are engaging with
youngsters and bringing them to the university so that even at an early
age they are being encouraged and given the vision that they might one
day achieve a place there. That type of good practice does not require
a lot of money—perhaps it does not require any—and should
be disseminated wider.
We must also
look beyond children to their parents. Many do not give their
youngsters many aspirations in life because they have none of their
own, perhaps as a result of disability, disappointment or
disillusionment. I welcome some of the initiatives that the Government
have taken to encourage people back into work. I do not want there to
be a benefit culture in Northern Ireland. It is not good for people to
feel and be totally dependent on the state. Of course, there are times
when people have to depend on the state and there should be a safety
net, but it is far more important to encourage people back into
full-time employment. It is also important that there are opportunities
for advancement when they get there—perhaps through access to
further education or training—so that they can become
self-sufficient and climb their way up the economic ladder.
There is much
to be done. I accept that the Government have made a start, and I have
been critical because more could have been done with the resources that
they take out of the economy through taxation. However, I look forward
to the challenge of local politicians doing that job. The success of
any local Assembly will be whether after four years it has made a
difference in the areas
where these problems are most prevalent. That should be a challenge for
local politicians, but it is currently the challenge of the direct rule
Administration that has assumed responsibility for those
areas. 3.33
pm David
Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP): I, too, welcome you to Belfast
City hall, Sir Alan. I was glad that the Minister was able to get a
winter fuel payment through for the City hall so quickly, but I think
we need another influx of money now because it is getting very cold.
The 50ps must have run out. We will have to talk to some of the
councillors who belong to the City hall. There is usually plenty of hot
air in this chamber at council debates. It is good to have the Grand
Committee here today. Like others, I hope that this is the start of a
great relationship. We look forward to the Committee meeting in the
city of Belfast again.
Much has been
said about poverty among children, and we all know that that is a great
difficulty throughout our Province. Issues such as lifelong opportunity
and tackling poverty are core to any plans that we put in place for the
future prosperity and social stability of the Province. Far too many
people in Northern Ireland still live in poverty. More than a third of
over-65s living on the lowest household incomes have 10 per cent. of
their earnings eaten up paying fuel bills. The winter fuel payment is
simply not keeping pace with increases in fuel prices. Society is
judged by how we treat the most vulnerable, and the Government need to
act now and increase winter fuel payments for households with people
over the age of 60. We also need to look at the mandatory retirement
age. Many people want to work over the age of 65 and are prevented from
doing so. They are also held back in terms of promotion whenever they
reach their mid-50s because of pending retirement. That must
stop. Far too many of
our young people go across to the mainland to study at universities and
never return. That trend must be not only halted but reversed. We must
encourage our young people to return home and build a future for
themselves and their children. In the process, that will help to build
a great future for all of us in the Province of Northern Ireland.
Regardless of devolution, it is the role, duty and responsibility of
the Government to promote our economy and improve the lifelong
prospects for our young people.
We need a
proper partnership involving the Government, business and individuals
in order to help our economy and meet the challenges of a cut-throat
global economy. The Minister mentioned the economy. I remember that on
the economic sub-committee we set up in Stormont the hon. Member for
Belfast, South mentioned the issue of partnership in relation to the
circle being closed between the business sector and education. I
supported him in that because there is a lacking there, and there
should be a closer working relationship between the education
establishment and the business community. Government have a major part
to play and should create the proper environment whereby business can
prosper. We recently had discussions on corporation tax and the money
that the Government are talking about putting into Northern Ireland if
and when devolution is restored. Corporation tax is a major problem; on
the commercial rating, I know the Minister is currently chairing a
committee to see if commercial rates can be
capped at 25 per cent. I know he is working hard at that and I hope to
see some dividend coming from that committee although I understand it
is standing still at the
moment. | 
