Debate contribution: Multi-year Budget

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 25 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

25 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Multi-year Budget

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5258767

Read the official Assembly record

Text

It is clear that the current economic and political system is not broken but working exactly as intended. The economic system that we live under was never designed to tackle wealth inequality. It was never designed to tackle record levels of deprivation, which includes, disgracefully, one in three children in my constituency living in child poverty. The current system is unable and unwilling to tackle the ever-increasing cost of food, the price of which is shooting up year-on-year, making it unaffordable for people right across the North. The system that we live under refuses to tackle year-on-year increases in rent, with landlords ripping off tenants while the Executive say, "Fill your boots, lads". It is clear that we need a different path and a different system in order to meet the needs of not only my community but the wider constituency across the North. As a start, the Executive and the Finance Minister should refuse to engage in the groupthink that is Treasury economics, which considers fiscal prudence and being in the black to be more important than the social consequences of terrible economic decisions. In recent days, the Finance Minister has referred to the need for revenue raising. I agree with him but have one big caveat. The question that I want to ask him is this: from whom will you, Minister, and the Executive seek to raise money? If you are talking about ending the landlord allowance, which sees millions of pounds going into landlords' pockets every single year, I am with you. If you are talking about reallocating and stopping the £80 million or so for industrial derating, which is, to repeat, a handout to multinational corporations, I am with you. If you are talking about tackling, alongside the Minister for Communities, the hundreds of millions of pounds that are going to landlords to subsidise increased rents, because rents are not capped or reduced, I am with you. However, if you are talking about kicking working-class people again, we will part ways. I will say, "No, thank you", and we will fight any proposals that do that. Prescription charges are being touted again, and everybody in the House should resist that. Although this Minister has ruled them out, water charges are unconscionable, given that people have been paying for water for decades. That idea will not work, because it will punish people who have already paid for their water. There has been some suggestion about paying for GPs, which is another ludicrous idea that would put more barriers in place for people who are already struggling to get access to their GP to receive healthcare. The current Economy Minister maybe had some flirtation with the idea of increasing university fees, but, thankfully, she backed down after people opposed the idea. That would not only be unfair but would be totally counterproductive. As other Members said, a multi-year Budget could — I emphasise the word "could" — give some Departments the ability to plan ahead, but the devil will be in the detail of the Budget. If we have stringent single-year Budgets repeated over three or five years, they will still be insufficient. The Executive need to demand, with one voice, a wealth tax. A wealth tax on the richest 2% across these islands could, for a start, bring in £160 billion over several years. Corporation tax needs to be increased rather than reduced, as previous Executive parties agreed to do. If there has been a Damascene conversion on that, I would certainly welcome it, but the Executive need to demand that corporation tax be increased. We need to see an end to the drive to militarisation and the huge increase in spending on war. In closing, it is worth reminding ourselves that billionaire wealth across these islands has exploded over the past 35 years. In 1990, there were 15 billionaires in Britain, but there are now 156. In the South, we have seen billionaire wealth increase by €13 billion in the past year alone. That is obscene and totally grotesque, and we are long past the time to abolish billionaires. That should be the stated policy of the Executive and all Governments across these islands. Instead of being in awe of and beholden to people who are often described as wealth creators but who are inequality defenders, we need to tackle wealth and abolish billionaires in order to have some fairness and decency in our communities.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:50 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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