Edwin Poots

Poots was educated at the Wallace High School, Lisburn, and then studied at Greenmount Agricultural College. He is married with four children. He is a farmer and previously served on Lisburn City Council. His father, Charles Poots, was also a DUP politician, having stood in the 1969 Northern Ireland General Election for the Protestant Unionist Party.

Poots 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.[2] He was subsequently made Deputy Mayor of Lisburn on 23 June 2008.[3]

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.[4]

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.[5][6][7] 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."[8]

On 23 September 2014, Poots was replaced by Jim Wells as Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.[9]

Poots is a young earth creationist and rejects the theory of evolution.[10] In the same interview, when asked by BBC presenter William Crawley 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.

Poots caused controversy by banning blood donations from gay people, saying "I think that people who engage in high-risk sexual behaviour in general should be excluded from giving blood." He defined risky behaviour as "someone who has sex with somebody in Africa or sex with prostitutes".[11]

In September 2013, as Health Minister for Northern Ireland, he fought the ruling that would bring laws around LGBT adoption in N.I. into line with mainland UK.[12]

In January 2016, Poots was criticised by some for saying that the newly elected First Minister, Arlene Foster's, most important job was as a "wife, mother and daughter".[13] Poots defended himself saying it was not sexist and that he considered his most important job to be that of a "husband, father and son". Others considered his comments were kind and well meaning.[13]

In December 2020, it was reported that while recovering from surgery, Poots had tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the first Executive minister to do so.[14] In January 2021 he revealed to Stephen Nolan that he has cancer.[15]