Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—and thank you to Simon.

I have to say that I was interested listening to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) talk about the value of the Union as if no other country in the world was investing in businesses and people at this very difficult time. Of course they are doing it in the Republic of Ireland in a very generous way as well. I know he is no longer in his place, but I have heard a proposal, for after a new Ireland comes into place, for a statue to be erected to him for all the work he is doing to encourage the people of Northern Ireland to vote for a very different constitutional future. I look forward to cutting the ribbon on it, and maybe Sammy will join us.

I found it interesting to hear the Chancellor speaking earlier about whatever it takes, and taking lots of credit for the necessary and essential furlough scheme. I do not know if anyone else can, but I can remember him being dragged, kicking and screaming almost, to extend the furlough scheme at Halloween. That left businesses confused and not knowing what they were going to do, and people lost their jobs as a result of it. It is good, of course, that it has been extended, but there should never have been any doubt about that in my view.

I also note very little mention of the B-word: Brexit was hardly talked about in the Chancellor’s speech. I wonder if that is because the OBR has said today that there will be a reduction of 0.5% in GDP in the first quarter alone because of Brexit. Many people, myself included, warned of the impact of Brexit. That was not heard, and pretending that the sunny uplands are coming as a result of Brexit is just beginning to be proven wrong with every passing week. There is that, plus the millions—millions—of pounds of funding from the European Union that is being stripped from the people of Northern Ireland and not replaced at all; not one penny replaced by this Government. It just shows us where this Government’s priorities lie when they relax the rules for the City of London and strip the people of Northern Ireland of unreplaced funds.

We have heard, and I think this will be proven to be fairly empty, a lot of talk about levelling up for the north of England, but where is the levelling up for the north of Ireland? We know that the protocol, despite what some people want to allege, is a benefit to us, as a result of a very hard Brexit, because it allows our businesses to trade into the British market and into the European market unencumbered. That is a competitive advantage that nowhere else on these islands has. Where is the effort to maximise that competitive advantage? Where are the investment hubs, with incentives in places like Derry, which has been stripped and starved of funding from Governments and is at the worst end of all the economic league tables? Where is the support to maximise that benefit and to sell the benefits of the protocol around the world, instead of listening to some of the nonsense we have heard from some of my colleagues about how damaging the protocol is? It is just not the case.

I also note that there is nothing in the Budget on the skills gap in Northern Ireland. We send thousands upon thousands of people away from our shores to study elsewhere, and they do not come back. That strips our communities, our families and our economy of very highly skilled people.

I am not somebody who would normally support low corporation tax, but the fact of the matter is that in Donegal, just across the border, corporation tax is 12.5%. In Derry, a mile away, it will soon be 25%. We take advantage of the protocol, and then we harm it by having a corporation tax double that just across the border. We know that small retailers are on their knees, and there is no mention of a windfall tax on Amazon, which is making an absolute fortune at the expense of those retailers.

The Chancellor says that the NHS is deserving of immense praise. The people in it do not want his praise; they want more money. They want more money in their pockets and they want more money in the system. In Northern Ireland, our population is 30 times smaller than England’s, but our waiting lists are 100 times longer. Where is the investment in our health service to get us through covid and to begin to allow people to get proper access to the health service they deserve? The Northern Ireland Executive have announced a £500 million thank you payment for those workers. Waive the taxes on it and allow them to keep the money for themselves.