Debate contribution: Autumn Statement 2024: Impact

Debate contribution by Mr David Honeyford on 8 April 2025.

MLA

Mr David Honeyford

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Autumn Statement 2024: Impact

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4919820

Read the official Assembly record

Text

There is not much positivity to shout about in our economy and at a time of great uncertainty on the world stage, but I want to start with a few positives for local people by welcoming the increases for the lowest paid in our society and the benefit to our local economy with the rises in the national minimum wage and the living wage. That will bring so much help to so many. Alliance believes in those rises as they align with our progressive values of fairness and equality. The increases to the living and minimum wages are a positive step forward as we improve living standards and work to reduce poverty and to support workers with their cost of living. They will have seen massive increases to energy costs, alongside inflationary rises. That is where the positivity ends. I have to raise concerns about the employers' National Insurance contribution increases, which are coming at the same time for our business community as the living and minimum wage rises. That compounds the financial burden on our local businesses, our social enterprises and the voluntary sector. They already have to tackle the rise in operational costs. Again, they are affected by the energy costs and inflationary supply costs. Those have been highlighted, and the Deputy Chair of the Finance Committee has also talked about the labour-intensive businesses, which are in the retail and hospitality sectors. I want to raise those again. We have sectors that have not had any rates reduction passed down from the Assembly that the other regions of the UK have had. Given the VAT rate reduction in the South, the sector has been squeezed on two fronts, which has further compounded the issue. We have a problem on our high streets that needs to be addressed. I want to give a shout-out to the AERA Minister and the dilapidation Bill that is coming through for our high streets. That will give powers to councils to enable them to start to tackle some of the issues that sit there. Looking further at our high streets, how can it be fair that a landlord with a unit that has been sitting empty for years on end — often with ratepayers having to pay to dress the windows to cover up those old buildings and bring some life back to that high street — gets a reduction in rates, while the small businesses next door that are fighting for their lives, trying to keep the lights on and trying to pay their staff are paying more than double than anyone elsewhere in the UK? Something is wrong there and needs to be fixed quickly. The Department of Finance needs to get on with reviewing the progressive changes that we need to our rating system. The changes need to be fair to our local companies and local businesses and fair to the employees who work in them. That, rather than sitting back, kicking the can down the road and saying, "This is a 10-year process", would encourage growth in our economy This is urgent for a lot of those businesses, and we need it looked at and tackled now. Every party in the Chamber talked about change at the last election, but if you were to ask businesses or those employed in them about change, they would say that they have not seen a lot of change to any of this. The Committee for the Economy is not seeing a lot of meaningful change coming through, and there is no any sign of legislation coming forward that will make a meaningful change to our economy locally. It is the Alliance view that the Government should be raising additional tax from the superwealthy, not from the most vulnerable; not from hard-working people; and not from small businesses and microbusinesses, the self-employed, social enterprises or the voluntary sector. However, social enterprises and community organisations often serve the most vulnerable and are caught up on two fronts: they not only have higher operating costs but those costs are rising at a time when the demand for their services is increasing. If there is no support coming, that will, potentially, leave a gap that our public sector simply cannot fill. Alliance wants to see a coordinated Executive response coming from the Department for the Economy that moves beyond reactive measures and builds a proactive strategy to grow our economy, be that through advanced manufacturing and innovation, in fintech or in energy, to realise the growth of green technologies. Equally, we need to see the investment in future generations. I welcome the increased investment in skills training but would love to hear the Minister provide a little clarity on what that will deliver, when and by whom. I am concerned about the drop in innovation and research funding for our universities, and maybe the Minister can also address that.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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

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