Debate contribution: Front-line Services: Employers’ National Insurance Increase

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 13 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

13 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Front-line Services: Employers’ National Insurance Increase

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4738700

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am happy to speak to the motion, which we will support. Like others in the Assembly, we recognise the negative and damaging impact that the increase in employer National Insurance contributions will have on our public sector and on those bits of the community and voluntary sector and private sector that help to deliver public services. That will have a deleterious, knock-on impact across a range of front-line services. It is really important that where we, as the Opposition, can add our voice constructively to an Executive approach to the UK Government, we do that. That is what we will do today. It is clear that it would be better if the additional costs were not being lumped on to our public sector and, indeed, to our community and voluntary sector. It is particularly important to say that, in the areas, for example, of general practice or in social or domiciliary care, where we know that, given the debates that we have had today and the state of our health service, it is vital that those areas of service are primed and ready to take the burden off acute care, particularly in our emergency departments but in hospitals more generally, and that those areas are well staffed and operating as they need to be and are able to do what the Health Minister keeps referring to as the "shift left". It is a particular concern for those services, and I share that concern. More broadly, however, the fact that we are having the debate is in itself slightly frustrating and a bit sterile, if I am honest. This is a devolved Chamber. I completely agree with the thrust of the motion — I would rather that we were not facing those additional costs — but, ultimately, people send us to the Assembly, and the Assembly elects an Executive in order to use its power to effect meaningful change for people's lives here. It is slightly ironic that we have heard from the opposition party — the party opposite, I should say; we are the Opposition party — and, indeed, from the other main governing party about their frustrations around the limitations of the power that they have. Let us go back to why the UK Government are doing this in the first place: it is in part because the UK is a smaller and weaker economy than it used to be. That is the blunt truth: Brexit has weakened the UK economy. We had a decade and a half of austerity that ground down public services and reduced deficits on the backs of the poorest people and to the cost of public services. What is happening now is that a new Government have come in, with a weakened economy, and have made the decision not to invest in those services. I find it ironic that the DUP has tabled the motion, having championed Brexit. They have no particular interest in looking to a new future in which we can make more of these decisions ourselves on this island. I personally think that that would be a much preferable outcome. To be honest, much of what we say today will not change the employers' National Insurance picture. I wish it were otherwise, but let us be honest with ourselves about that. I strongly support the call that we should lobby, and the Finance Minister should, of course, make those representations, because imposing extra costs on our public sector is not the way for the UK Government to proceed. We strongly oppose it, we wish that it had not been imposed, and we are deeply frustrated with some of the content of the Budget. Let us be honest, however: unless we choose at some point to do things differently ourselves here, we will keep being faced with decisions that have a deleterious impact on our public services. We will keep being faced with choices that we did not make and cannot fundamentally change or reshape. By all means, let us lobby the UK Government to give clarity on what additional support they will give and lobby them hard to meet the additional costs of this. We fully support that, and we will support the motion and the amendment. However, let us also be honest about the long-term limitations of our current arrangements and how, in the very long term, we will not be able to effect fundamental change without more fundamental change in our arrangements.

I have little time. I am happy to give way, if I am allowed.

Will you give me an extra minute to respond?

Being a sister party in the Party of European Socialists in no way binds me to agreeing with decisions made by the British Government. My party is not in a confidence-and-supply arrangement like yours was. That went really well for the DUP; you really were able to undo austerity. My party, like all the other parties here, will vote for the motion and agrees that raising employer NICs is the wrong decision and the wrong way to go by the Labour Government. The point that I made was that, unless we are fundamentally honest about the limitations of our current arrangements under the devolved settlement and, ultimately, in terms of where decisions are made, we will never be able to effect fundamental structural change. Those are the only points that I wanted to make. We will support the motion and the amendment.

909 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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