Debate contribution: Job Creation: Ambitious Targets

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 19 March 2024.

MLA

Ms Sinéad McLaughlin

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

19 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Job Creation: Ambitious Targets

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4279700

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the motion and our amendment on the need for ambitious targets for job creation. It is often said that what you do not measure, you cannot achieve, and that is no truer than when considering the change that is needed in our economy. Whether that change is to our stubbornly high rate of economic inactivity, which remains at 6·8% higher than the UK average, to our low productivity, which remains at 17% below the UK average, or to the unacceptable disability employment gap of 44%, there is still a lot of work to do to ensure that our economy truly works for all. The reality is that none of those gaps will be closed if we do not measure the progress that we are making. If we do not set targets, how do we know whether public policy is having an impact? Without a target, how would any business know whether it was on track to make a profit? More to the point, how would any family know that it was able to stay within its own budget? Those are targets that can apply to every sector. Although our amendment did not propose to remove from the motion the figure of 5,000 technology jobs, as we have no particular objection to it, the truth is that it is a largely arbitrary figure and that the process of determining targets should be more thought through. Targets should be set for all sectors, recognising the unique selling points of different regions. Although there is often a focus on the technology sector, each region and each industry has a particular contribution to make to Northern Ireland. Those contributions should be recognised in the targets that we set, and we also need to go beyond targets for job creation in order to deal with the challenges that I have mentioned. The aim of the targets cannot just be to grow the economy. Otherwise, we are in danger of continuing the perverse imbalances and inequalities that exist today that allow those areas that are doing well to do even better still while places such as Derry and elsewhere in the west are allowed to fall further and further behind. The aim instead must be to grow and rebalance the economy, to end the postcode lottery of jobs, opportunity and investment and to reverse the regional inequalities that have been allowed to fester and that have created a two-tier economy, in which wealth is concentrated in some places and not in others, in which the difference between the council areas with the highest and lowest levels of economic inactivity is over 10% and in which the difference in the levels of gross disposable income is over £4,000. If you are from the most deprived area of Northern Ireland, you are three and a half times more likely to have no education qualifications at all and twice as less likely to be degree-educated. Most of all, people living in the areas with the highest levels of deprivation are likely to die up to seven years earlier than those in the most affluent areas. Targets must also apply to our economic development agency, Invest NI. It really is unacceptable that recent figures demonstrate that only 7·9% of visits by foreign direct investors hosted by Invest NI over the past 10 years took place west of the Bann. Those figures include only 14 visits to Fermanagh and South Tyrone and only 13 visits to West Tyrone. The targets must therefore be subregional, time-bound and measurable. It is only through measuring targets and identifying need that we will be able to put in place the kind of deliberate and intentional interventions that are needed in the places where the market and policy have failed. I call those kinds of interventions positive discrimination, because that is what is needed when decades of neglect and failed economic policy have left communities struggling in generational cycles of poverty. I listened very carefully to Pat Sheehan in the previous debate, and I could not agree with him more. Poverty destroys lives and destroys communities. Job creation is about wealth creation, particularly for our most deprived communities, so that people can escape those cycles of poverty. For me, targets are about tackling inequities and interjecting when market failure is happening. It is at the heart of economic and social justice. It is welcome that the Minister has committed to subregional targets, at least for Invest NI, particularly given his predecessor's reluctance to do so. In the previous mandate, I was told time and time again that investment is demand-led, that businesses follow that demand and that government's job is not to direct investment. That analysis ignored any need for government to create the conditions necessary for that investment. It appears that the tune has finally changed. I cannot help but feel, however, that we are behind the curve, given that we are still debating whether to introduce economic targets. Let us look elsewhere. The South is light years ahead. Its economic development agency, IDA Ireland, already targets half of all FDI investments to regional locations. The South's national planning framework targets five cities for 50% of the overall national growth, specifically targeting regions that have been left behind. Even closer to home, we have seen how targets can orientate the Government's thinking. Scarcely a week goes by in this place when we do not talk about the climate targets, about how much the Government have yet to do to meet them and about the consequences of failure if we do not. The climate targets have become a northern star for Departments and strategies. If it is good enough for the climate crisis, why is it not good enough for the economy? Of course, targets are meaningless without action, and we have all become far too familiar with the news about missed targets for hospital waiting lists and public-service reform. We cannot allow targets to become yet another casualty of the dysfunction here. There must be consequences for missing those targets. In our view, the consequences should take the form of financial stimulus packages. Therefore, when a target is missed, a financial stimulus package should be put in place in that sector or place to reverse the failure. All of that should be underpinned by ambitious and binding legislation, and although the motion calls on the Minister for the Economy to act, we need to recognise that he cannot do it alone. Every Department needs to adopt a subregional approach to its policy, strategies and plans. That will require strong leadership from the Department for the Economy, and it needs everyone to buy in. We need to measure life expectancy in different places; set targets for more investment in the health and social care trusts; measure infrastructure deficits; intervene in the west, where the need is greatest; and measure school attainment to set targets where our children are being failed and are falling behind. We need everyone to join in this endeavour through statutory obligations, annual reporting and a legal framework on how regional balance is addressed by the Government. By introducing that kind of legislation, we would be following the example of Governments from around the world that have acted before us. I have already outlined the approach of the South, but there are countless other examples. For example, Finland's Regional Development Act (No. 602 of 2002), which required the Government to set national development targets, or the Regional Development Victoria Act, 2002 or the commitment to regional balance in Germany's constitution. Those countries recognise that a person's life chances should not be determined by their postcode, so why cannot we? I invite the Minister, once again, to accept the need for the legislation in his response to the debate. In summary, I commend those who tabled the motion, and I ask the Assembly to support the call in our amendment for regional balance. Only through finally measuring how far we have yet to go can we move forward towards a vision that we all share, which is an economy that works for everyone.

1,351 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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