Debate contribution: Social Security Reform and Economic Inactivity

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 1 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

1 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Social Security Reform and Economic Inactivity

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4877137

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the motion and what appears to be a new policy direction for the Alliance Party towards the redistribution of wealth. It is something that I genuinely support. Wealth taxes are often brushed off and even laughed at by some in this Building, so it is a welcome change in policy. Tens of thousands of people in the North will be impacted on by Labour's cruel and callous benefit cuts that were announced recently. As we heard, at least 35,000 people will be impacted on by changes to PIP alone. That is a devastating loss of income for the most vulnerable in our society; that is, people with disabilities. According to DWP's figures, a quarter of a million sick and disabled people across the UK will be forced into poverty and destitution. Those are the Government's own figures. That includes 50,000 children. We are now staring down the barrel of another mental health crisis. The mental health champion has warned that slashing social security and removing the safety net of social security may drive more and more people to suicide. In the Long Gallery today, some of us heard from the Samaritans about the shocking and compelling evidence on the links between poverty, inequality and suicide, and I thank it for its research and its work. Experts are warning Westminster and Stormont that this welfare reform is punitive and cruel. The last round of austerity led to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. My concern, and that of many others, is that austerity 2.0 will be the same. The cuts will only cost more money in the long term, with even more pressure on the NHS and the labour market. Many people who rely on social security are already in work. The majority of people on benefits are already in work. Labour's benefit cuts will result in actual job losses, making a total mockery of their supposed concern for economic inactivity, which is usually a code word for kicking the poor. It is no coincidence that the savings made as a result of the cuts match the shortfalls in Labour's self-imposed fiscal targets, which is more proof, if it were needed, that it was never about supporting people into work. It looks like these benefit cuts are the first steps down a well-worn path to austerity with a red rosette. Austerity is an ideological and political weapon used to hammer the poor in order to protect the rich. The Chancellor's talk about a black hole in the Budget and the national credit card's being maxed out is calculated and misleading language that suggests that there is simply no alternative to the current economic orthodoxy. Austerity is a false economy. It was unnecessary 15 years ago and is unnecessary today. The Labour Government have another agenda at play. We are witnessing, as we have heard, the dismantling of the welfare state in service of a warfare state. Taking money from the pockets of sick and disabled people here and in England, Scotland and Wales to invest in defence spending and the local manufacturing of weapons is morally repugnant. The national credit card is not being maxed out for war; it is just being passed around the wallets of the wealthy. Our money is in the wrong hands. The motion refers to a wealth tax, which is welcome. It is worth saying that a 2% tax on assets worth £10 million or more would raise £24 billion per year. Equalising capital gains tax and income tax would raise over £16 billion per year. However, Labour and the Tories are complete fiscal conservatives. They have shown no interest in the redistributive power of taxes. Thankfully, public pressure for a wealth tax is growing, as evidenced by the motion. A poll by YouGov and Oxfam that was published just before the spring statement shows that 77% — a clear majority — of people across the UK would rather that the Government taxed the wealthy instead of making spending cuts. People understand that it is fundamentally unfair that workers are taxed on their earned income while the rich who own capital and generate unearned income get off, essentially, scot-free. Rachel Reeves also doubled down on those inhumane cuts last week. It is safe to assume that thousands of people in the North will be impacted on sooner rather than later. That is why it is important to support the amendment that has been tabled by the SDLP. We have the powers and precedent already to mitigate those cuts, but Executive parties have wasted no time projecting the narrative that there is no money for more mitigations. It is time for a conversation about revenue raising, this time from the rich and wealthy. Multimillion-pound companies like Coca-Cola, Moy Park, Caterpillar and Kingspan get rate relief to the tune of £73 million a year. Scrapping industrial derating would raise millions of pounds, but nobody, apart from me, is talking about it. We could also complete the devolution of corporation tax in order to raise revenue. By doing so, the wealthiest corporations, those who are most able to pay, would foot the bill for mitigations. Not only can we afford those mitigations; we cannot afford not to implement them. It is a shame that the amendment has omitted references to a wealth tax. It is important to do both. Executive parties need to apply massive, maximum pressure to challenge wealth at Westminster and commit, in the here and now, to find the money to mitigate those cuts in the North today. I hope that the Minister will make that commitment in his remarks.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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