Debate contribution: Regional Imbalance

Debate contribution by Mr David Honeyford on 6 October 2025.

MLA

Mr David Honeyford

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

6 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Regional Imbalance

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5157216

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the proposer of the motion, Sinéad McLaughlin. It is an important issue that we need to discuss honestly. Alliance believes that economic regional balance means that every person, no matter what their postcode, will have equal access to skills training, jobs and opportunities.

That, however, has to mean much more than numbers on a map and be about more than a binary argument that pitches Belfast against Derry. For Alliance, regional balance must mean that every person, whether they live in Derry, Coleraine, Enniskillen, Omagh, Lisburn, Dromore, Newry or Belfast, has the same chance to succeed. As the proposer referenced, some of the most deprived areas are in the constituencies of North Belfast and West Belfast. For us, prosperity must be shared. The wealth gap between the rich and the poor must be reduced in order to bring about a shared society. All of that requires government to work together across Departments, not in silos. None of the issues that we are dealing with fits neatly into just one Department. The motion calls on the Minister:

"to ensure that all Departments contribute to its successful implementation".

I sit on the Public Accounts Committee. It does my head in, and I will keep raising this point, that, although there is barely an issue that we deal with that does not cut across multiple Departments to deliver on, we have only one Minister to scrutinise what we want taken forward. The Department of Health is probably the only Department in which issues are self-contained. Most issues are not, however. Skills cuts across the Department of Education and the Department for the Economy. Adult reoffending, at which the PAC looked recently, cuts across the Department for Communities and the Department of Education. Jobs and mental health are also factors involved. Everything has to be considered if adult reoffending to be addressed, but our Committee structure is based on scrutinising one Minister's Department, with Committees powerless to scrutinise wider issues, which makes delivery slow and difficult to achieve. Looking at that is a major part of the reform that the Assembly needs to undertake. We need to achieve regional balance in order to make sure that every community in every town and village across Northern Ireland sees the benefits of prosperity and economic growth. We must raise the value of the money in everyone's pocket, not just in the pockets of those in the wealthy suburbs of Belfast or in my constituency of Lagan Valley. I agree with the need to have regional balance, but, with all due respect, what I struggle with is what the SDLP often means by "regional balance". It simply means Derry, not anywhere else. I absolutely agree that regional balance has to include Derry, but it also has to include everywhere else. Lagan Valley is, wrongly in my view, included in the Minister's definition of the Belfast metropolitan area. Invest NI has zero land in my area to bring jobs to or for companies to expand, however. The DUP continues to block Maze/Long Kesh development, which leaves us with nothing, and with no way in which to bring new jobs to the area. We are located in the M1/A1 corridor, yet my constituents are left without any hope of jobs or opportunities being expanded locally. The M1 continues to be a car park into Belfast in the morning. I am being let down by Invest NI and by the Minister's definition. Part of achieving regional balance is having the ability to move stuff to where business is looking to position itself. I have been calling for ages for a Northern Ireland-wide development plan — a master plan, if you like — to sit above councils' individual local development plans (LDPs). Such a plan would shape our economy, give us locations for energy and renewables sites and plot the major infrastructure that we need, such as the A5 and the implementation of the all-island rail review. Without such a plan, we cannot deliver regional balance. If we do not have the infrastructure, such as the A5 and rail networks, we cannot deliver it. Without the road network —.

Investment is part of it, but I am talking about having an overall plan in which we see the A5 upgraded and all the other bits of major infrastructure that we need plotted. In the west, you cannot ask for health reform if you do not allow people to access hospitals quickly and simply via road or rail networks. That has to happen. Regional balance cannot be about winners and losers. It cannot be about Belfast versus Derry. Rather, it has to be about fairness for every community, from the largest city to the smallest village. We owe it to every young person, family and business to create an economy in which prosperity is genuinely shared.

I believe completely in a shared future. I believe in a shared island economy. Providing opportunities for everyone is fundamental to what Alliance wants to see, but that has to work everywhere, not just in Belfast and Derry.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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