Debate contribution: Regional Balance Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 8 September 2026.

MLA: Ms Sinéad McLaughlin
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 8 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Regional Balance Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5674277

Text

I beg to move
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to move the Second Stage of my Regional Balance Bill. I will begin by thanking some of the people who have helped to get me to this point. Introducing a Member's Bill is not something that any Member does alone, and I have been incredibly fortunate to have had so much support along the way. I particularly thank Barbara Love in the Assembly's Bill Office for all her help, patience and guidance throughout the process. I also thank her colleagues Frank, Trevor and James, as well as the whole Research and Information Service (RaISe) team. They have each played a really important part in helping me to develop the thinking behind the Bill and in turning that thinking into the legislation that we are debating today. I am also blessed with my own team. Jason and Elias have walked with me every step of the way and have worked tirelessly to support the Bill. I am also delighted with and grateful to everyone who responded to my consultation, as well as the researchers, economists, academics, businesses and organisations who gave of their time, shared their expertise and, at times, challenged my thinking. The Bill is stronger because of that engagement. The starting point, however, for the legislation goes back a very long way for me. Before entering politics, I spent much of my career working in economic and business development, including as chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce in Derry. I worked with businesses that wanted to grow and with people who were trying to attract investment into the north-west. Over those years, there was never a shortage of ambition in our city region for our future, but there were barriers standing in the way of that ambition: poor connectivity and gaps in skills and infrastructure, with those areas having not kept pace with what our economy needed. That all contributed to a persistent sense that the north-west was having to work harder simply to get itself into the same starting position, and I heard plenty of promises from government too. If I had a pound for every time somebody in government told me that Derry was on the cusp, I would be very wealthy today. We were always told that things were about to change, but, too often, that transformation never quite seemed to come. Therefore, I came into politics, and, during my first term in the Assembly, much of what I had seen on the ground was reinforced by what I saw inside this place. Too often, policy could be place-blind, and even when regional inequality was recognised, the responses were weak and often inconsistent and certainly not durable. Too often, regional balance was seen as just the purview of the Department for the Economy. However, we in Derry know that decisions to shape all regional economies are being made right across government. Transport and infrastructure clearly matter, but so do decisions on education, particularly higher education, skills, housing, planning and public investment. Therefore, for me, regional balance needed to be put on a more permanent footing and embedded across government, creating a golden thread throughout government. There has never been a permanent framework running across government that connects all the parts of government to a shared responsibility to reduce regional disparity and that survives changes in political leadership and allows the Assembly to properly ask whether the gaps are actually narrowing. Ultimately, that meant introducing legislation, and that has brought us here today. At the heart of the Bill is a very simple principle: where you live should not determine the opportunities available to you. It should not determine whether you can access a good job, whether your community has the infrastructure that it needs to grow or whether the Government see your area as a place worth investing in. We know that significant disparities remain. There is a 16% employment gap between the best-performing and worst-performing local government districts.
In Belfast, GDP per head stands at £56,000, compared with £28,000 in Derry and just £19,000 in the Ards and North Down Borough Council area. The poverty rate in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area stands at 24%, which is almost double the rate in other parts of Northern Ireland.
Let us look at where economic opportunities are being created. According to this year's Invest NI figures, 57% of jobs created in Northern Ireland were based in the Belfast City Council area. Only 270 jobs were created in Derry, which represents just 6% of all the jobs created in Northern Ireland last year. In the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area, the figure is just 2%. Northern Ireland's second city receives only a fraction of the jobs being created by our economic development agency. Those economic differences matter, but regional imbalance is not something that we see only in economic statistics. The 'Health Inequalities' annual report for 2026 paints an even starker picture for people living in the Western Health and Social Care Trust area. Of the 34 health outcome indicators that were analysed, not one was better than the Northern Ireland average. The standardised death rate for suicide was 45% worse. When people in some parts of the North earn less, have fewer opportunities, experience poorer health outcomes and can expect to live shorter lives, we cannot seriously call those places "thriving". We simply cannot do it. Northern Ireland is not alone in confronting the problem. Governments everywhere have grappled with the same challenge. The OECD has warned that persistent regional inequalities can weaken the economic, social and political fabric and create what it has described as a "geography of discontent". When people look around their community and see opportunities concentrated elsewhere, particularly after hearing promises of change, they lose faith and trust in government, and we hear that on the doorsteps. That feeling is particularly strong in Derry, and I make no apology for championing the city and the wider north-west. There is a strong economic case for developing Derry as a city region and a driver of growth across the north-west. The evidence is clear that cities should be supported as centres of economic activity, creating growth that reaches well beyond the city itself. That makes economic sense. The Regional Balance Bill, however, is not a Bill for just one place. Regional imbalance takes different forms across the North. Communities in Fermanagh, Armagh and south Down face their own challenges around connectivity, skills and access to employment. There are communities in Belfast itself that are experiencing severe deprivation, only a few miles from significant economic opportunity. This is certainly not a zero-sum game. A stronger Derry does not make Belfast poorer, and greater economic activity in Tyrone does not diminish growth elsewhere. The Bill is also for our rural areas, where communities face challenges with infrastructure, connectivity and peripherality, as well as often higher rates of poverty. Too often, they have been left out of the economic story. When any places are left behind, that represents economic potential that we are failing to use. Regional balance is not simply about sharing the proceeds of growth more fairly but about creating more growth overall by enabling more places to contribute. I recognise that progress has been made in this mandate. The Executive have recognised regional inequalities, while the Minister for the Economy has placed greater emphasis on regional balance through the economic vision and the subregional economic plan, and I really welcome that. It demonstrates an increasing recognition in government that regional imbalance needs to be addressed. My argument is that we should build on that work and give it greater permanence and continuity. That is what the Bill seeks to do. Let me tell Members what the Bill would change. The Bill comprises three Parts and eight clauses. Under Part 1, the Executive would have to agree a regional balance strategic framework that sets out the outcomes that they want to achieve in reducing regional disparity and sets measurable targets within timelines.
When I talk about "outcomes", I mean changes that people can recognise in their everyday lives. We should be able to look at employment and wages and see whether places that have consistently fallen behind are beginning to catch up. Those are the kinds of changes that should tell us whether regional balance is being delivered. To know that, we need to measure it properly. The framework would establish accountability using evidence to identify where disparities exist and allowing us to track whether those gaps narrow over time. Evidence would include cross-border data reflecting the realities of our economy, in which many people cross the border on their work commute every day. Each Department has a role in the framework, so that regional disparity has to be meaningfully considered when they develop and implement their policies, strategies and plans. Regional imbalance is not created by one Department and therefore cannot be solved by one Department. The Economy Minister alone cannot deliver regional balance. If regional imbalance is a cross-government challenge, addressing it has to be a cross-government responsibility, and the Bill recognises that. Under Part 2 of the Bill, government would have to come back to the Assembly and tell us what it has done and, crucially, what difference it is making. That takes regional balance beyond a statement of intent and puts structure around how government delivers it. In the Bill, we have included provisions not just to report for reporting's sake but to evaluate progress, so that we can change an approach if it is not working. Those are the fundamental principles that I ask Members to support at Second Stage. I want Members to support transparency, accountability and the need for every Department to contribute to our shared mission to build a fairer economy. That is how the golden thread that I spoke about and the policy architecture and infrastructure that are needed to deliver it will be created in practice. Members will have questions about the Bill: I expect and welcome that. I also expect the Department to have comments on the Bill. The Minister knows that I am keen to work with her. I tabled the Bill because I am really keen to have this on a statutory footing, as I believe that it is the missing link in the government's approach. I look forward to the Department bringing its economic expertise to bear on the Bill and its provisions. However, at Second Stage, the fundamental principle before us is relatively simple: should reducing regional disparity be a lasting responsibility of government, shared across the Executive, with clear outcomes and accountability for whether progress is being made? I strongly believe that it should. If Members agree on that principle today, the Economy Committee will have an enormously important role in what comes next. It will hear evidence from Departments, councils, businesses, trade unions, academics, community organisations and people across the North. Members will bring experiences from their constituencies to that scrutiny. That will help shape how the legislation works in practice, which I welcome. I want Members from different constituencies and political traditions to see something of their communities in the legislation. Today, I ask Members to support those principles and allow the Bill to move forward. Then, bring your experience and ideas and the needs of the communities that you represent to the scrutiny that follows. I look forward to hearing Members' contributions and to working with them as the Bill progresses. Ultimately, this is about unlocking the potential of all the places that we represent. We have talked about regional balance for a very long time. We all agree that nobody should be written off because of their postcode or that leaving home is simply the price that some people have to pay for opportunity. The Bill gives us the opportunity to move regional balance from being an aspiration of government to being a responsibility of government that is measured in law and for which it is held accountable. For communities that have spent decades waiting for prosperity to reach them, the Bill will mean finally having a fair chance to contribute to our shared economic success. For the whole of Northern Ireland, the Bill will mean a fairer and more successful economy. I ask the House to support the Regional Balance Bill at Second Stage. I commend the Bill to the House.

2,073 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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