Edwin Poots

Edwin Poots MLA
Poots in 2013
Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 January 2020[a]
First Minister	Arlene Foster Paul Givan
Preceded by	Michelle McIlveen
Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party
In office 28 May 2021 – 30 June 2021[b]
Deputy	Paula Bradley
Preceded by	Arlene Foster
Succeeded by	Jeffrey Donaldson
Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
In office 6 May 2011 – 23 September 2014
Preceded by	Michael McGimpsey
Succeeded by	Jim Wells
Minister of the Environment
In office 1 July 2009 – 6 May 2011
Preceded by	Sammy Wilson
Succeeded by	Alex Attwood
Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure
In office 8 May 2007 – 9 June 2008
Preceded by	Michael McGimpsey
Succeeded by	Gregory Campbell
Member of the Legislative Assembly for Lagan Valley
Incumbent
Assumed office 25 June 1998
Preceded by	Constituency created
Personal details
Born	(1965-05-27) 27 May 1965 (age 56) Lisburn, Northern Ireland
Nationality	British
Political party	Democratic Unionist
Spouse(s)	Glynis Poots[1]
Children	4
Alma mater	College of Agriculture
Occupation	Farmer
Website	Edwin Poots MLA
^a Gordon Lyons served as Acting Agriculture Minister from 2 February 2021 to 8 March 2021 while Poots temporarily stood aside for health reasons. ^b Poots announced that he had requested a new leadership contest on 17 June 2021, but remained in office until a successor was elected.

Edwin Poots (born 27 April 1965) is a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from May to June 2021.^[2] He was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley in 1998, and was appointed Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs in January 2020.^[3]

In 2007, First Minister Ian Paisley appointed Poots to the Northern Ireland Executive as Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure. Poots left office after Peter Robinson became First Minister in 2008. In 2009, Poots returned to the Northern Ireland Executive as Minister of the Environment, before being promoted to Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in 2011. He was removed as Health Minister in 2014. In 2020, he was reappointed to the Executive by First Minister Arlene Foster as Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs.

After Foster resigned as DUP leader in 2021, Poots was elected as her successor, defeating Jeffrey Donaldson. However, less than three weeks later, on 17 June, following controversy over his decision to nominate Paul Givan to be First Minister, Poots announced that he had requested a new leadership contest and that he would remain in post until a successor was appointed. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson succeeded Poots on 30 June 2021.^[4]

Early life[]

Poots was educated at the Wallace High School, Lisburn, and then studied at Greenmount Agricultural College.^[5] He is a farmer and is married with four children.^{[citation needed]}

His father, Charles Poots, was also a DUP politician, having stood in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election for the Protestant Unionist Party.^[6]

One of Edwin Poot's sons, Luke Poots, was a councillor with Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council,^[7] but he did not seek reelection in the 2019 Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council election.^[8][9]

Career[]

Local and regional politics[]

Poots served as a local government councillor on Lisburn City Council before being elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the 1998 election.^[10] He was a member of the Environment Committee and chaired the Committee of the Centre (Committee for the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister) in the 1998–2003 Assembly.

On 8 May 2007, he was appointed Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure in the Northern Ireland Executive, a post he held until 9 June 2008, when a cabinet re-shuffle saw this post being reassigned to Gregory Campbell.^[11] He was subsequently made Deputy Mayor of Lisburn on 23 June 2008.^[12]

On 1 July 2009, Poots was returned to the Executive as Minister of the Environment, in charge of the Department of the Environment. In May 2011, he was appointed as Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.^[13]

In June 2011, Poots fired his legal shotgun twice from his upstairs window as a warning to intruders on his property in Lisburn, who then fled. His family called the police and an investigation began.^[14][15][16] A DUP spokesman said "Given the risk to Mr Poots and his family, a legally held shotgun was safely discharged into the air by Mr Poots from within his house to alert the intruders that their presence was known."^[17]

On 23 September 2014, Poots was replaced by Jim Wells as Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.^[18]

When devolution was restored on 11 January 2020, First Minister Arlene Foster appointed Poots as Minister of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs. Gordon Lyons served as the acting Agriculture Minister from 2 February to 8 March 2021 after Poots stood down temporarily for health reasons.^[19]

DUP leadership[]

On 29 April 2021, Poots announced his candidacy in the party leadership election in May to succeed Arlene Foster as DUP leader, the day after Foster declared she would be resigning.^[20]

Poots was announced as leader of the DUP on 14 May 2021, beating Sir Jeffrey Donaldson by 19 votes to 17.^[21] He was ratified as the party's leader on 28 May.^[2] Some DUP members spoke of their "disgust" at the way in which Foster had been ousted. There were claims that Poots' supporters engaged in bullying and intimidation during the leadership election, and some party members walked out before his speech. Poots admitted party members are "bruised" but denied claims of intimidation. Several party members resigned, including councillors.^[22][23]

The First Minister had always been the leader of the largest party, but Poots said he did not want to be First Minister if he became DUP leader.^[24] On 8 June, Poots unveiled his ministerial team, which included Paul Givan as First Minister.^[25]

On 17 June 2021, a letter from the DUP party chairman and other senior party members asked Poots to delay Givan's nomination as First Minister to oppose the British government's decision to introduce Irish language legislation in the Westminster Parliament.^[26] However, Poots nominated Givan as First Minister and Sinn Féin re-nominated Michelle O'Neill as deputy First Minister, restoring the Northern Ireland Executive.^[26] Prior to this nomination DUP MLAs had voted 24 to four against the decision to nominate Givan for the role.^[27][28] As such, within hours of Givan being sworn in as First Minister, DUP officials convened a party meeting to oust Poots as the leader of the party after less than three weeks into the job. Poots resigned shortly after, announcing that he had requested a new leadership contest but that he would stay in post until a successor was elected.^[29][30] Sir Jeffrey Donaldson succeeded Poots in the role on 30 June 2021.^[4]

Views[]

Poots is a young earth creationist and rejects the Big Bang theory and theory of evolution.^[31] In an interview with BBC presenter William Crawley, when asked how old the Earth was, Poots replied: "My view on the earth is that it's a young earth. My view is 4,000 BC". Young earth creationism is accepted by the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, of which Poots is a member, and other conservative evangelicals in Northern Ireland.^[32] In a 2012 Belfast Telegraph article, which discussed lobbying by the creationist bible group the Caleb Foundation, Poots stated that, while not a member of the group, "Some of my views coincide with the Caleb Foundation".^[33]

Poots faced criticism for banning blood donations from gay people,^[34] saying: "I think that people who engage in high-risk sexual behaviour in general should be excluded from giving blood".^[35] In June 2012, Poots said he wanted to extend the ban to people who have sex "with somebody in Africa or sex with prostitutes", stating that, in his view, this was also high-risk sexual behaviour.^[35]

In September 2013, as Health Minister for Northern Ireland, he fought the ruling that would bring laws around LGBT adoption in Northern Ireland into line with other parts of the United Kingdom.^[36]

In January 2016, Poots was criticised by gender equality advocates, political commentators and other politicians for saying that the newly elected First Minister, Arlene Foster's, most important job was as a "wife, mother and daughter".^{[37][38][39][40]} Poots defended himself saying his statement was "not sexist" and that he considered his most important job to be that of a "husband, father and son".^[41][42]

In October 2020, he was criticised by members of Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party after saying coronavirus was more common in nationalist areas. He stated: "There is a difference between nationalist areas and unionist areas – and the difference is around six to one".^[43] The Department of Health stated that "data on Covid infections is not collected according to religious or political affiliation".^[43]

Achievements[]

On 17 June 2021, only 21 days into his tenure as DUP leader, Poots was forced to resign following his decision (against the will of his Assembly and Westminster teams) to nominate Paul Givan as First Minister.^[44] It is believed to be the shortest time between any person becoming a leader of a political party in Northern Ireland and leaving the role.

Personal life[]

In December 2020, it was reported that while recovering from surgery, Poots had tested positive for COVID-19, the first Executive minister to do so.^[45] In January 2021 he revealed to BBC television presenter Stephen Nolan that he had cancer,^[46] and on 2 February 2021 Poots temporarily stood down for health reasons, returning to work several weeks later.^[47][48]

References[]