Debate contribution: Fiscal Devolution

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 29 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

29 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Fiscal Devolution

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4921695

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I am pleased to open another Opposition day of business here in the Northern Ireland Assembly. We made a deliberate choice when we drafted today's motions to be pointed, concise and specific. You will have noticed that, Mr Speaker, when the motions came to you and your Clerks advised you on the contents of those motions and the suggested amendments. All too often, since we have come back here, we have had long, saggy, waffly motions, particularly from Executive parties, with unclear actions, get-out clauses, convoluted promises and vague commitments being offered by those parties. They have been amended. Sometimes, Ministers have said that they will deliver. Sometimes, they have tried to wriggle out of being clear. On other occasions, Executive parties have even voted for those motions where their own Minister is responsible and nothing has happened. Today, we decided to do something a little bit different. We thought that we would be concise. That is not always a quality that is associated with me, I have to say, but we thought that we would be concise, be focused, ask for clear actions and see how parties in the Assembly voted. The first motion is on fiscal devolution: the principle that more fiscal powers — the power to levy taxes and greater autonomy over how money is both raised and spent — happen here in Northern Ireland, authorised by the Northern Ireland Assembly and overseen by the Minister of Finance. We did not name the Minister of Finance in the motion because we thought that it would be obvious that the Minister of Finance would respond to the debate. However, as I turn to my left, I see no Minister of Finance. Why is that interesting? It is interesting because, if you go back and read the Sinn Féin manifesto from the Assembly election in 2022, you see that it is quite clear that Sinn Féin supports greater fiscal devolution to the North. In fact, it was Conor Murphy, the former Sinn Féin Finance Minister — perhaps we should not set huge store by the former Finance Minister's fiscal authority, given his stays in five-star hotels, paid for from the public purse — who ordered the creation of the Fiscal Commission, something that I supported in the Chamber several years ago, which reported on greater fiscal powers for Northern Ireland. That organisation reported four years ago. Here is the document. In 2022, the Sinn Féin manifesto promised greater fiscal devolution. Sinn Féin Finance Minister Conor Murphy commissioned the Fiscal Commission to report on greater fiscal powers for Northern Ireland. Led by Paul Johnson, the current head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, it produced a very detailed report. Sinn Féin Ministers have repeatedly promised greater fiscal devolution. The current Sinn Féin Finance Minister has, in this very Chamber, committed himself to pursuing a policy of greater fiscal devolution.

We thought, therefore, that we would put down a concise, clear motion asking the Executive to commit to bringing forward plans for greater fiscal devolution. We thought and assumed, naively perhaps, that the Sinn Féin Finance Minister, who believes in taking more power away from London, from the UK Government, who, as we all agree, do not always have the best interests of this place at heart, would come here to make his case, to respond to our motion and to explain his view on fiscal devolution. He is not here. He is not in the Chamber, so we can draw our own conclusions from that.

I come now to the substance of today's motion. Since we returned to the Assembly and the Executive were created in February last year, there have been consistent statements from various Executive parties, particularly from the party of the Finance Minister, relating to the constraints on public finance in Northern Ireland. That is true: we are in a constrained fiscal position in Northern Ireland. There is absolutely no doubt about that. It is worth saying, however, that the 2024-25 financial year, which we have just come out of, saw the greatest ever spending package that a Northern Ireland Executive have ever received. I do not think that that will be the case going forward, and I add my voice to those who say that the new Government have not set a path that is enough of a decisive break from the Tory party in terms of austerity politics and constrained public spending. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is — or there should be, given all the statements made by Executive parties — a broad consensus on the need to devolve more fiscal power, to take more responsibility here for how we raise money and how we spend it. That is obvious. The Fiscal Commission report that was published in 2022 — its interim report came out in 2021 — set out a range of options. It went through every form of taxation that is levied in the UK and gave its explanation for how it could, and whether it should, in its view, be devolved to Northern Ireland. It set out details for the partial devolution of income tax, as happens in Scotland, and the devolution of the apprenticeship levy, which, as we all know and have said repeatedly in the Chamber, is not best optimised for use in Northern Ireland and has not been properly deployed to increase apprenticeships. I am sure that the Chair of the Economy Committee and members of the Finance Committee may have something to say about that at some stage. The report also set out the devolution of corporation tax, which, by the way, has happened in law, but that law has never been commenced; stamp duty land tax, which is a tax on property transactions; air passenger duty, which is already devolved, although I have talked at some length about how I do not think that the management of that tax has been particularly effective; and landfill tax, which is the tax on waste. What has happened? Nothing has happened, as far as I can see, from the Fiscal Commission's findings. Last year, when we had an Executive restoration package, various new processes and structures were set in place. There was a transformation strand, which we have heard something about: £129 million was awarded for what we were told was transformation work. However, there was also something called the Budget sustainability plan. We were told that the Budget sustainability plan would mark a step change, that we were going to have to raise all the revenue locally and that it would be tough and penal. Well, if you go through the Budget sustainability plan, you will not necessarily find ambitious areas of new revenue-raising to pay for public services, which we all agree are in a shocking state in this place. What you will find are some remarkably modest and small areas of revenue-raising, including hospital car parking charges. The Executive and the Finance Minister scored against their target for revenue-raising the proposal not to commence an Act, which was brought in by the Finance Minister's party, that would make it free to park in hospital car parks. Now, whatever the merits or otherwise of that particular Act, let us pause for a second and reflect on the absurdity of that position. Sinn Féin Ministers have repeatedly talked — I agree with them passionately — about the need to devolve more fiscal power to the North, so that Ministers here can decide how money is raised and spent. What substance have we seen from Sinn Féin Finance Ministers? Well, one of the main areas is in simply not proceeding with an Act that was introduced by a Sinn Féin MLA. That is, I am afraid, an absurd proposition. We have been consistent as a constructive Opposition in —.

Increasing of public transport fares was scored as a tough decision that had to be made to increase revenue. That is a decision that is made by Translink every year. It is not the best decision to be making when you are trying to encourage people onto public transport and to make a step change through active travel and decarbonisation. Since we have been back, we have heard consistently about the constraints that have been placed on our spending power and the limitations that there are in how we fund ourselves in Northern Ireland. At the Finance Committee and in here, I have talked consistently about that. I have not gone through loads of the technical detail that is in Fiscal Council and Fiscal Commission reports, because that has all been published. As with so many of the reports that are published here, nothing has happened. If we want to know why we breed cynicism about politics in this place, we should look at what happens when people constantly make promises. Not only are those promises not delivered on but there is no sign of them being delivered upon. People are treated like mugs. We need to devolve more fiscal powers here and we need to raise more money. We do not need to put more pressure on ordinary people in Northern Ireland. I want to be clear that we should not be levying extra taxes simply to punish people, but more of the powers to raise those taxes should lie here, as they do in Scotland. That would give us more autonomy and power over how we do public services. Despite the fact that we have no representative from the Executive here to respond to the debate, I look forward to the Executive parties explaining to us why they do not want to take that added responsibility for improving people's lives here.

1,620 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:27 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification