Debate contribution: Autumn Statement 2024: Impact

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 8 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

8 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Autumn Statement 2024: Impact

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4919842

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We have had several debates like this in the past number of months, because we recognise the danger and the deep concern of our working people and business owners — rightly so — about the impact of the autumn statement on their businesses, lives and livelihoods. It is therefore important that we grapple with the issues and debate them when we can. We need to realise a number of things. What is the purpose of government? Government's first responsibility is to keep us safe through security, upholding the law, protecting rights and liberties and providing good public services so that we can strive and thrive. This Government do not do any of those things well; in fact, they do them poorly. When you look at the record of the new Labour Government, you can see that they are anti-labour. Is it not ironic that the Labour Party has turned so far away from its roots and from the people that it professes to protect? This Government are anti-labour. They are anti-jobs, anti-workers and anti-economy. They do not leave it there; they attack our pensioners. They attack our farmers, and not only that, they attack our farmers' children. That is how dangerous this Government are. Instead of upholding security and keeping us safe, they want to fleece us for every hard-earned pound. That is some Labour Government.

Thank you. Yes, absolutely, and it is no wonder that people lose trust in politics. A party says one thing out of power and does another thing when in power. It would not be so harmful, if it did not impact on us so greatly, but it does. It impacts on us mightily. One of the things that strike me — Members will know that I repeatedly raise this in the Chamber — is that we have not been governed well over the past five years. The measures that have been brought in have hurt our people, businesses and society. Who pays the price for that bad governance? Our people pay, not the Government, politicians or Ministers. Our families and hard-working people and those who run businesses pay. It is so difficult to run a business. The politicians who make the decisions think that they have a hard job, but they should try running a business and employing 100 people to feel the pressure. Yet we have Departments and Ministers who make horrendous decisions because we have been governed badly over the last five years and because they have to fill the black holes that they create and support. Who picks up the pieces? Our businesses and our employees. It cannot stand. When I heard the autumn statement, I thought that Labour would never go through with it. How could they? Think of the pain that it is causing. Surely they will see sense and do a U-turn. Yet, 1 April came and went. It is not just the increase in employer National Insurance contributions from 13·8% to 15%; it is the lowering of the threshold from the current £9,100 to £5,000. If you ask any small-business owner who employs between seven and 30 people, they will say that that hurts most. Especially in our high streets, voluntary sectors and low-cost businesses, the threshold move has caused the damage, because no one escapes that. It is right to say and good to applaud the fact that the national minimum wage and national living wage have increased. However, it is not much good to have a national living wage increase when you have just lost your job on Friday. The Government must get real. To be fair to the Northern Ireland Executive, they could have done little to prevent the Labour Government from announcing and enforcing the measures. However, they cannot shirk the responsibility of doing what they can to help our people. There have been times when English companies have availed themselves of rates relief that, in Northern Ireland, we have not been able to offer. Now is the time when the Finance Department and Minister and the wider Executive should be thinking about how they can get relief to hard-working people, businesses and the people who employ people and who create wealth. We need to find relief for those people now.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

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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