Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Bill

Lord Hay of Ballyore Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to make my first contribution in this House on this hugely important Bill. When I first started my political career some 40 years ago, I could never imagine the opportunities I would have. Serving for seven years as Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly was an incredible privilege, but to join your Lordships’ House is an incredible further honour of which I am proud but very humbled.

I appreciate the welcome and advice I have received from noble Lords on all sides of the House, not least from my two sponsors, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, of Clogher Valley, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont, two very hard-working Peers in this House. That needs to go on record. I also want to thank all of the staff who have done so much to welcome and support me in the House. I appreciate how important the work of parliamentary staff is to making the institution operate smoothly.

It is a great delight to join this place with Ballyore in my title. The townland of Ballyore and the village of Newbuildings gave me my first start in politics. The strong support I have received over the years certainly makes it close to my heart and I am glad to bring it with me symbolically to this House. Being a proud representative of the great city of Londonderry for four decades—a city close to the border with the Republic of Ireland—certainly made this debate on the devolution of corporation tax to Northern Ireland an obvious choice for my first contribution in your Lordships’ House.

I want also to put on record my thanks to the joint ministerial working group formed in October 2011 which did quite a bit of the detailed work on this Bill. It reported in October 2012 and I know of some of the hard, detailed work that was involved.

I know that there have been some concerns about how this Bill will fit into the delicate balance of constitutional arrangements in the United Kingdom at this time. However, we need to remember that the whole purpose of devolution is to recognise the differing circumstances of the regions and to allow decision-making to take account of those local differences. It is hard to imagine circumstances more different than being the only region of the United Kingdom to have a land border with another nation, let alone a nation with a much lower tax rate.

The economy of Northern Ireland also has the additional challenge of overcoming the legacy of decades of conflict and all that came with it. In this context we have performed well over recent years given all the difficulties that Northern Ireland has had. For example, in 2013-14 we had a record year of investment in Northern Ireland. Nearly 11,000 new jobs were promoted, 23 first-time investors came in, and month upon month unemployment figures have dropped. Northern Ireland has attracted more foreign investment than any other part of the United Kingdom.

We all recognise that corporation tax alone will not address the economic challenges that face Northern Ireland, but it is a very important lever for the Northern Ireland Executive to have to address the imbalances within our economy. Once the principle of the devolution of corporation tax has been agreed, it is for the administration at Stormont to examine the detail and agree the arrangements. Of course there will be difficult judgments to make and there will be major issues to take account of before the long-term benefits are seen in Northern Ireland.

Significant changes of this nature and significant returns seldom come without a level of risk. I would not seek to deny that the Assembly has had great difficulties in recent days and it is frustrating at times that the level and speed of progress made in this mandate of the Assembly was not as many would like to see. However, I do not so easily dismiss the distance we have travelled in the context of the problems we have had to overcome. No one in this House or in the other place would seek to pretend that government is easy, especially in Northern Ireland. Add to these factors the additional legacy of issues that we face in Northern Ireland, and perhaps fair-minded people will acknowledge that the situation we find ourselves in today bears no comparison to what we might have imagined 15 or 20 years ago.

There are many issues that Northern Ireland politicians still have to deal with, whether they are about the past or flags and parades. There are so many issues on which they have to try to reach agreement. They are difficult issues for politicians in Northern Ireland to deal with. We would all hope that we can implement the Stormont House agreement for the people of Northern Ireland so that once again, both politically and economically, we can all move forward. I would hope that sooner rather than later the issue of welfare reform can be resolved because, as the Minister has said, it is part of an overall agreement. It is not a matter of taking it in slices, whether it be welfare reform or the issue of corporation tax. The Stormont House agreement was a package. There are still some issues to be resolved, but I am hopeful that they can be resolved.