Debate contribution: Public Petition: Scrap the Rates Exemption for Big Business

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 20 October 2025.

MLA: Mr Gerry Carroll
Party at the time: People Before Profit Alliance
Date: 20 October 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Assembly Business
Heading: Public Petition: Scrap the Rates Exemption for Big Business
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5188302

Text

I present the petition on behalf of over 3,000 people who signed it to raise their objections to the ongoing industrial derating policy. I thank Roan and the team at Act Now, who gathered the signatures. The petition challenges the fact that huge amounts of public money are going to major multinational corporations. The Department of Finance, no doubt, will tell people otherwise. Despite some of what we have heard today, that is money that working-class communities need. Nurses are being denied a pay rise, when they could have availed themselves of that almost £80 million. That money could go a huge way towards resolving the mental health crisis, the housing crisis and other crises in our communities. Every year, however, that money goes to multinational corporations. Companies such as Moy Park, Caterpillar and Coca-Cola do not need corporate handouts. They need to be human-rights compliant; they need to respect, protect and not pollute our environment; and those that are doing so need to not engage with or support the Israeli war machine. The signatories to the petition have raised their objections to the fact that rates for homeowners and small businesses rise year-on-year. There is no derating process, handout or bailout for those people: they are forced to pay ever-increasing amounts for their rates. It is also worth mentioning that a similar policy was in operation for some time in England and Scotland, but came to an end in 1963 in the former and 1995 in the latter. It is clear that the policy is not only unfair and should not be in operation but is completely out of date and backward. Over the years, huge sums of public money that could have gone into the region — hundreds of millions of pounds — have been wasted on those companies, while they do not give a damn about their workers: they underpay them and exploit them. Thank you for allowing me to present the petition in the Assembly today.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.13 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.92).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.93).
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.10	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.06	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.08	No
Controversy escalation	0.19	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.92	Yes
Overall judgement	0.13	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.93
Reports or questions it	0.00
Criticises or condemns it	0.02
Adopts it	0.05

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
No identity-related subject	0.63
Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits	0.10
Another identity-related subject	0.10
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues	0.09
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.06

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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