Debate contribution: Fiscal Devolution

Debate contribution by Mr David Honeyford on 29 April 2025.

MLA

Mr David Honeyford

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

29 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Fiscal Devolution

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4921747

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Eóin laid out our position on finance, but I will speak on the economy. The DUP has told us about capability and capacity. That was repeated, and I appreciate that, but it is a bit rich for the people who lobbied for and brought us Brexit, which caused the UK economy to drop, to talk about the risk of punishing people. It is a little rich for the people who brought us the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme and that waste to talk in the Chamber about draining people of their hard-earned cash. I wanted to start with that. The current funding arrangements stifle our growth. The Assembly is less accountable to our people because of that.

It causes a complete lack of ambition in this place and this region. What we are currently working with is not fit for purpose as we look to the long term and to the funding of our public services, which, as has been said, are being squeezed.

Our economic growth remains really low. It is better than that in the rest of the UK, but it is still close to zero. Years of UK Government austerity have brought all public spending into focus. That does not give a Minister an excuse not to bring in changes or reforms. We desperately need reforms to Departments in order to bring in the changes that we have been talking about for years. It also does not give us an excuse not to deal with the urgent need to address the cost of division and the money that we waste every year in our budgets by having two of everything, rather than just getting on with uniting our community and working as one. As for the security of the Assembly, the two largest parties' disregard for the Chamber over the years has meant that this place has been down as often as it has been up and has not worked. The threat remains that, at any point, either the DUP or Sinn Féin can pull this place down, and that is also a barrier to growth. It does not build confidence. If anything, we need the rules on that changed. The response that we hear from both parties is that they have no plans to collapse the institutions, but we need actions, not words. A start would be to relinquish that veto. Maybe then we would be able to plan for the longer term, to assist and change the region in order for it to prosper and deliver for everybody. We agree with the principle of the devolution of more fiscal powers. I will pick up on what Paul Frew said about corporation tax. I use this as an example only because Paul used it. He asked why we had not got on with it. If we were to drop the rate of corporation tax, we would take money out of the budget for our public services, which, he said, are being squeezed. In that, he defined the issue: if we dropped corporation tax, public services would be squeezed, so which public service do we take that money from? That is the problem. None of the benefit that would potentially come from growing our economy through that would stay here. We do not see the benefit of lowering that tax, because it would cost our public services. That is why this is just not fit for purpose. We need to be able to retain finances here so that we can be accountable to our people for how we spend that money. Eóin has already gone through progressive taxation. I make no apology for saying that we want to see progressive taxation so that the poorest and those on the lowest incomes are looked after and those with higher incomes and the super-rich pay more in our country.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am talking about multimillionaires. I think that that has already been defined. We are talking about the mega-rich — billionaires — and the people on the very lowest incomes and the most vulnerable. Fifteen or 10 years ago, was there a food bank in your area?

Was there one 20 years ago?

No, there was not. We are seeing that across the board. It brings shame on our society that people are leaving —.

No, I will not give way again. I have limited time. Although the South, our closest neighbour, has major issues of its own, which is grand, the massive advantage that it has over us is its ability to raise tax and have a budget in order to pay to fix those issues. We do not have that. As a result, our economy suffers, and we cannot help. We cannot provide or have not provided incentives for small businesses. Look at the situation in hospitality with the rises in National Insurance and rates. The costs are so high here, but nobody is making a fortune in that industry. Demand will drop, we will become uncompetitive, and our economy will slow. Local hospitality is not able to compete with the lower VAT and lower rates in other areas. Herein lies the problem: we get our pot of money to spend, but we do not have the ambition and the mechanisms to generate and create more and better for everyone.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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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.

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