Debate contribution: Hospitality VAT Harmonisation

Debate contribution by Mr Phillip Brett on 10 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Phillip Brett

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

10 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Hospitality VAT Harmonisation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4790932

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone for proposing the motion. Since the Minister for the Economy took office, less than a week ago, she has responded to two debates on hospitality and tourism. That is because Members from all sides of the House recognise the importance of our tourism sector and of the job creation in the hospitality sector that has been vital to the growth of our economy. The fact that tens of thousands of jobs in every corner and community of Northern Ireland rely on the hospitality sector has been articulated, and it is important that the House recognises the context in which the sector is operating. Hospitality businesses are not just recovering from the impact that the COVID pandemic had on them, but the impact on our hospitality sector of the changes that the Chancellor announced has been simply devastating. Members will have read newspaper articles or watched the news and seen that hotelier after hotelier and publican after publican are pausing plans for expansion or job creation because the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions and changes to the living wage are completely unsustainable for them. It is important that we recognise the importance of the sector to the economy in Northern Ireland. As I made clear last week in my Adjournment debate, and as the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone has made clear today, it is the welcome that people are given in our pubs and restaurants that makes Northern Ireland a special place. It is the warm offering that those people receive that makes them want to come back again and again. We cannot have a tourism market in Northern Ireland if we do not have pubs and restaurants where our visitors can eat and drink and hotels in which they can stay. This point has been picked up slightly, but it is important to recognise that, in its current scenario, Northern Ireland has the worst of all worlds. We share a land border with the Republic of Ireland, where the VAT rate is much lower than ours, but we also have businesses here that do not benefit from the same rate relief as businesses in other parts of the United Kingdom do. That is a double whammy for our hospitality sector, which continues —.

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. The Member for Upper Bann has perfectly articulated the challenges faced by our business community. That ties into the fact that the current Minister for the Economy, in her previous role as Minister of Finance, commissioned important work on the cost of doing business in Northern Ireland. She will know from representations that she received from me and from other members of the Committee for Finance that it is important to encapsulate all the cost mechanisms that are currently placed on businesses in Northern Ireland, because they look to their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland, where there are lower levels of corporation tax and VAT, and then to their counterparts in other parts of the United Kingdom, where they have the rate relief that we do not. I can speak only to the motion in front of us, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. My party supports the motion, but we have concerns about Northern Ireland having separate VAT arrangements to other parts of the United Kingdom. We put forward an amendment, but it was not selected. I will not breach any rules by speaking to an amendment that we proposed, but the intent of the Ulster Unionist Party's motion is important. The Fiscal Commission, in an important body of work, highlighted the difficulties presented by having a stand-alone lower rate of VAT in Northern Ireland and outlined some of the difficulties that our Scottish counterparts encountered when they tried to do put forward similar views. When the Minister for the Economy speaks in the debate, it is important, although she has only been in office for a short time, that she sets out her strategy for supporting businesses in the here and now. It is important to have the 10-year tourism strategy that the previous Minister launched, and to have a "good jobs" Bill. If, however, we do not have providers to provide those services in 10 years' time due to the cost-of-doing-business crisis, and if we do not have employers who are able to grow and to offer further jobs and have a framework for good jobs, tourism growth will simply not happen. I look forward to hearing the Minister outline what work she is going to do to support the vital hospitality sector. My party will support the motion.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:56 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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