Response to the NI Executive’s Anti-Poverty Strategy (2025-2035) consultation document 

The Workers Party is in agreement with the document produced by Members of The Anti-Poverty Strategy Design Group, which states that “that this current draft [APS] is not fit for purpose and fails to outline the necessary steps to meaningfully address poverty in Northern Ireland.” The Workers Party urges the Executive to withdraw this flimsy aspirational document and replace it with a paper outlining a bold redistributive agenda aiming at specific poverty-reducing outcomes. As we note below, poverty is an inevitable outcome of the market system, but a genuine commitment by the Executive to fighting poverty could bring better outcomes to thousands of people in NI.

The Design Group raises crucial structural and political issues which the Executive’s Anti-Poverty Strategy document (henceforth the APS) fails to deal with. The Design Group notes that UK policy, “characterised by over a decade of severe cuts to public services and welfare provision—has left deep structural impacts, particularly on low-income households.”

The Workers Party agrees that “over a decade of austerity, antipathy to income redistribution, the ever-rising cost of living, shrinking public sector budgets, and a wholly inadequate social security system—are generating significant economic, political and societal pressures. These factors continue to deepen poverty and intensify its consequences.” Generational poverty which has been a problem for decades in areas of multiple deprivation has increased exponentially. Also, poverty is structurally linked with health inequalities, including shorter lifespans.

The Executive’s Anti-Poverty Strategy document is based on three pillars which form the basis for (vague and uncosted) policy recommendations. There is no discussion in the document of why so many people are in poverty, but there is an underlying assumption that the state can support, advise and encourage people in poverty on their journey to good jobs, and good quality affordable housing in safe areas with well-developed infrastructure.

The very notion that people who have suffered years of neglect by those in power can somehow be supported and advised out of poverty shows a wilful disregard for the lived experience of those impacted by the indifference and neglect caused by the Executive parties. People don’t choose to be poverty stricken. Poverty has been foisted on many of our citizens through the failure to introduce the APS promised twenty-five years ago.

In terms of rhetoric then, while the poor are not overtly blamed for being poor in the APS document, there is a strong undercurrent which suggests that is the case. The APS sees the state’s role as help and encouragement, when what is required is concrete action rather than cheerleaders. The APS is mistaken to state that government policy can align with the requirements of business to bring good jobs etc to everyone. This is not how the economy works. Poverty persists in rich countries because policy and production in rich countries are not oriented towards substantive equality but profit-maximisation, which most people are forced to work their lives around.

What Causes Poverty?

For the Workers Party poverty is inherent to the workings of the capitalist economy, in which competition between business demands employers pay workers as little as they can get away with. In a grow-or-die ‘free market’ economy, firms constantly need an adequate profit for investment, and this places downward pressure on wages, especially in less skilled jobs. In a situation where workers can be fired with little or no negative outcomes for the employers, workers may fear the consequences of making wage or other demands because they risk losing their jobs and the welfare ‘safety net’ in Northern Ireland is punitive to put it mildly.

In poorer regions of rich capitalist countries, such as Northern Ireland, unemployment or the availability of poor jobs to large sectors forces many people to work in the ‘informal’ economy, which is characterised by intense price and cost competition, and where many firms survive by avoidance of tax and lack of regulation of wages and work conditions.

Self-employed workers, who constitute a large part of the NI workforce, may choose the informal sector to avoid tax but consequently have no legal rights or possible state benefits. In Northern Ireland, the current absence of a strong workers party and of trade union representation in many poor job sectors and the informal economy result in intense competition for poor jobs among poor workers, which of course, ultimately benefits employers.

Beyond the workplace, the outworkings of this are seen in poor housing, hopelessness, criminal and other illegal activities, addiction, debt, and the everyday chaos that comes with having no money and no prospect of money. What is required is a complete reordering of who owns what, but in the here and now workers need to stand up to those with the power and responsibility to make changes and tell them that they should be ashamed of their failure to address poverty and deprivation.

Risks, Impacts, and Exits

As noted, many of the proposals under the headings of minimising risks, minimising impacts, and exiting poverty are either too vague to be meaningful, are uncosted, and have no deadline for delivery. Other proposals are unachievable within the constraints of the existing capitalist framework.

Under the pillar of minimising risks, the strategy promises to “promote the benefits of a good family structure” and to support disadvantaged families and young people in achieving “fulfilling and complete home and family lives.” Yet it fails to define what precisely will be promoted or supported, leaving open significant questions about the values and practices implied by a “good family structure.”

Similarly, the pledge to support people in maximising their financial wellbeing offers no concrete mechanisms beyond a promise to continue providing free financial advice—an intervention unlikely to address structural poverty. Commitments to reduce harms associated with alcohol and drugs, or to ensure that ethnicity does not increase risk of poverty, are presented without substantive detail or actionable steps.

The APS promises that “all children will have maximised opportunities in relation to education”, yet children in Northern Ireland are deprived of the thirty hours free nursery places aimed at addressing socio-economic gaps in educational attainment that are available in the other regions of the United Kingdom. Substantially removing socio-economic gaps in educational attainment would require a massive reduction in the socio-economic inequalities that exist in society. The current Programme for Government makes no commitment to reorient the economy towards substantive equality. Therefore, many working-class children will continue to miss out on important educational and other opportunities.

In relation to minimising impacts, statements such as “appropriate and effective financial support will be provided” or pledges to create “safe environments” and “strong communities with improved physical infrastructure” lack costed plans or timelines, rendering them rhetorical rather than operational.

In a capitalist economy housing provision is based on profit taking and not on desirable social outcomes. For landlords, construction companies and banks, a house is a commodity to be exchanged, but for the people who live in it a house is a home to be lived in. Currently, hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Ireland live in poor accommodation. Many hundreds of thousands are in debt, and some are a few paycheques away from defaulting on their mortgages. An increasingly large percentage of the population live in rented accommodation, some of which is poor-quality and frankly dangerous. In 2016, the NI Housing Executive found that almost 1 in 10 (9%) of all dwellings in Northern Ireland were considered dangerous. According to generation rent, in May 2025 48,000 households were on the housing waiting list, while over 36,000 families endured “housing stress”. A report on the private rented sector from the University of Ulster found that in 2024 40.0% of median household income is spent on median rent across Northern Ireland. This means that half of private renters in Northern Ireland are paying at least 10 percentage points more than the typical affordability threshold of 30% of income.

As it stands, the returning Executive has failed to live up to its rather modest house building programme. The realisation of APS outcome where “everyone has access to good quality, affordable and sustainable housing” would require a massive state building programme. The Workers Party has long argued for the setting up of a state construction company that would help meet housing demands in the public sector and would also provide well paid sustainable employment opportunities and apprenticeships for our young people A genuine commitment to good quality, affordable and sustainable housing is a radical system-challenging demand that needs to be met.

Finally, under exiting poverty, the strategy promises to address gaps in childcare provision so that disadvantaged families can “maximise their potential in the workplace” As mentioned earlier this requires a commitment on employment rights and well-paid sustainable employment which is ignored in this document. The document merely points to a “strong and growing economy” as the ultimate vehicle for poverty alleviation. This approach assumes that market-driven economic growth will produce enough accessible, well-paid jobs to lift people out of poverty—an expectation that has proven to be entirely optimistic within capitalist economies. Indeed, as noted above competition between capitalists for profits and between workers for jobs, can result in a wage squeeze which can increase levels of poverty.

As the Workers Party noted in its response to the Investment section of the Programme for Government, the Executive’s economic strategy aims to stimulate Northern Ireland’s economy by creating “clusters” of high value-added employment in sectors such as high technology, pharmaceuticals, green tech and financial services. It seeks to leverage foreign direct investment (FDI), innovations in technology, and support local businesses to scale up productivity. The Workers Party argues that emulating the economic model of the South—where multinational corporations play a dominant role—has already led to a split or bifurcation in the workforce, with high-wage, high-skill opportunities limited to a small fraction of the workforce while many others remain in lower-paid or insecure roles. If NI were to become a ‘successful’ high tech cluster economy with a strong component in the FIRE sectors, some people may benefit but it would also result in a further deepening of poverty in Northern Ireland, especially in those areas where high-tech clustering would lead to rising housing and rent costs in places like Belfast.

While the anti-poverty strategy gestures toward desirable social outcomes, its lack of concrete plans, timelines and resource commitments renders much of it aspirational rhetoric, which is not what is required. Even where the goals are compelling, achieving them would require either a significant reorientation of the Northern Ireland economy and a shift of emphasis away from the privatisation and fragmentation of our health and social care services, bringing services back inhouse and creating more jobs would also help to start the process of dealing with health inequalities that go hand in glove with poverty, ambitious social-democratic measures that are not currently on offer. In its present form, the strategy is perpetuating existing inequalities while presenting the illusion of action.

A better anti-poverty strategy is required

The economy is not oriented towards the eradication of poverty, and the APS is not a meaningful or substantive response to poverty in Northern Ireland. While noting that poverty is a structural feature in capitalist societies, even in the fifth richest economy in the world, the Workers Party has a number of immediate demands.

We note that some small but welcome changes are in train with respect to slightly extending access to free school meals and school uniform grants, but these are limited (as opposed to available to all) and will not take a single individual out of poverty. Having handed over the control of welfare to London in November 2015, DUP/Sinn Féin/Alliance must now take the fight for an expanded welfare state to Westminster and if they do not, the people of Northern Ireland should take note.

What is required is a commitment to introduce a proper living wage, an end to zero-hour contracts, an end to precarious employment practices, and the introduction of affordable and free childcare places to enable those living in poverty to have access to well-paid employment, especially single parents, who are predominantly women from working class communities. Bringing our utilities into public ownership would not only lower prices to consumers and help those most in need but it would also allow profits on energy to be reinvested in green sustainable energy sources and create jobs and a healthier environment in addition to boosting the local economy.

Free to all at the point of demand

Research from the ONS indicates that between 2010-2013, 33% of the UK population found themselves in relative poverty at some point while persistent relative poverty averaged around 8%. Academic Elizabeth Seale informs us that, “half of all Americans born prior to 2000—despite living in the richest country in the world—have experienced poverty for a full year in their lifetime”. For working class people, poverty is not unexpected and not something outside their experience.

If the NI Executive parties are serious about reducing poverty, and there is no evidence of this, they need to see poverty as a widely experienced and structurally embedded lack of power and money. To eradicate poverty would require a radical shift in governance. Just as primary and (in theory) secondary education, medicines and healthcare (although in crisis) are free at the point of demand, the same philosophy should govern the provision of dental care, transport, all education, housing, energy, and childcare. If the NI Executive were to commit to the comprehensive provision of quality welfare services central to their programme going forward, this would, at least, be a step forward. Meanwhile, the APS should be scrapped as not fit for purpose. In its response to the PFG the Workers Party outlined the first basic steps that must form the building blocks of any meaningful strategy to tackle poverty, and its root causes. The APS is woefully inadequate.

Ultimately, only socialism can offer a solution.

18th September 2025