Debate contribution: Rates (Regional Rates) Order (Northern Ireland) 2025

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 10 March 2025.

MLA

Mr Eóin Tennyson

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

10 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Rates (Regional Rates) Order (Northern Ireland) 2025

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4840933

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the regional rates order, and I will support the related orders that are before the Assembly today. There will, no doubt, be Members who will, in the course of the debate, oppose any uplift to the regional rate. I encourage any Member who takes that stance to articulate how they would fund their proposed approach. As others have said, rates are the most significant lever available to the Executive to raise vital funding for health, education and other vital public services, and a crucial funding stream for local government, in particular. Our focus should be on balancing value for money for ratepayers and the pressures facing hard-pressed households and businesses with much-needed investment in our public services. The Department's target on gross collectable rates for 2024-25 was set at 93%, translating to £1·8 billion by the end of the current financial year, and, in the 2025-26 draft Budget, it is estimated that rates revenue will generate almost £730 million for Departments. Rates are not only important for investment in our public services; there is a requirement, from the financial package, for the Executive to raise £113 million from local funding streams. As a counter to what the leader of the Opposition says, that is a requirement that was not agreed by any of the Executive parties, but imposed on them, and there would be a consequence were we not to meet it, because that financial package has delivered an additional £430 million for our public services.

I will, of course.

I am not going to comment on the difficulty, or otherwise, of individual decisions, but the reality is that there is an onus on the Executive to find that money. All Ministers need to look within their Department at the means that they have to raise money through the fees that they charge for services, for example, so that we get a balanced approach and minimise the burden that we place on people through the rating system. That is what has been attempted to date. I agree with the wider ambition in respect of going further with fiscal devolution and progressive revenue raising, but it is important to highlight the fact that there would be a consequence were we not to meet that target. The £129 million that was invested in GP services for multidisciplinary teams, the speeding up of our justice system and the demand for special educational needs, for example, flowed from that financial package and is dependent on us reaching our conditions around revenue raising. Therefore the decision that we are taking today is not an unimportant one. It is important that we take these decisions seriously and recognise the consequences were we not to meet those objectives. I support the approach of decoupling the domestic and non-domestic rates, given the enormous pressure facing businesses as a result of the National Insurance hikes that were introduced by the UK Government: of course, part of the reason why the decoupling is so necessary is the huge cost that will be borne by the public sector in that respect. However, it is regrettable that we are, once again, considering a rates order in the absence of any meaningful reform of rating reliefs. It remains the Alliance Party's view that the strategic review of rating policy over 10 years lacks the urgency or the independence that is necessary to deliver a progressive rating system that is fair and supports economic growth. The Department should, instead, move to establishing an holistic, independent review of reliefs without further delay. In addition, interim support measures are absolutely necessary to support, in particular, the hospitality, retail and leisure sectors, which have not been in a position to benefit from reliefs available elsewhere in these islands. Whilst I will be the first to acknowledge the huge funding constraints facing the Executive, it is also the case that failure to intervene now could be more expensive in the long term, as otherwise viable businesses go to the wall as a result of the pressures that they face. I hope that, in future years, the rates order is not the only means of revenue raising that we debate in the Assembly. I invite the Minister to update the House on his position in respect of the powers that he is seeking through the permanent fiscal framework, if he is in a position to do so.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:02 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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