New jobs bill will force ‘positive discrimination’ and end ‘decades of neglect’ of Derry

Transcript

00:00 Last week was a period of profound and historic change in Northern Ireland. Yet, for all the

00:05 change that has been brought to this Assembly, the change that I am focused on is the change

00:10 that is needed for our economy. I was glad to hear the First Minister note the importance

00:14 of regional balance last week, because the truth is that the effects of the Government's

00:19 economic investment strategy over the last two decades have been to let the areas that

00:23 have done well to do even better still. That has resulted in profound imbalances in our

00:30 economy and a postcode lottery for jobs and opportunity. The difference in the level of

00:35 employment and economic inactivity between the highest-performing regions and the lowest-performing

00:40 regions is around 10%, and there is still a huge disparity in the levels of earnings

00:47 and disposable income between people in different places. In places like North and West Belfast,

00:54 where levels of poverty are the highest anywhere in Northern Ireland, in places like Fermanagh,

00:59 which is starved of infrastructure development, and in places like Derry and the North West

01:04 City region, we are still a city without a university of size that was promised, without

01:12 the investment that has been pledged and without the jobs that were so badly needed. But I

01:17 did not get involved in politics because of how bad things are in Derry. I got involved

01:23 because of how good things could be. Derry and the wider city region is the only metropolitan

01:30 urban area of scale outside Belfast able to compete with cities across this island. But

01:37 more than that, to invest in Derry is to invest in the whole of the economy, since it is there

01:43 that special intervention will have the most transformative impact.

01:49 The opportunity before us is huge. Making the most of that opportunity will not happen

01:55 overnight, but neither will it happen by accident. It requires deliberate and proactive policies

02:01 and interventions. It requires affirmative action to address the decades of neglect.

02:08 It requires positive discrimination to tilt the balance of our economy and to ensure that

02:14 everyone has a fair chance to succeed. That positive discrimination must take the form

02:21 of legislation. As such, I will be proposing a new law that will change the way this place

02:27 works so that we finally prioritise regional balance in jobs, skills and investment. This

02:35 legislation will create abounding targets on departments and accountability in our government.

02:41 It will finally reform Invest NI and it will expand our higher education provision in the

02:47 north-west. So as this mandate starts, let's resolve it not to be the same as the last.

02:55 We need to change the approach if we are going to rebalance our economy. Warm words alone

03:00 about regional balance just won't cut it. Even commitments in the programme for government

03:05 won't be enough. We have heard them and seen them all before. Let's get this done.