Now our politicians have returned with great fanfare to Stormont, a lot has and will be written in the press about the DUP’s boycott with its demands of ‘no divergence from the rules the rest of the UK trade by’ and the desire of all our political parties who want to restore our public services and secure the fair and decent pay rises our public sector workers deserve.
Little, however, has been written about the difficulties being experienced by the ‘real economy’ which generates the tax revenues that help pay for our public services, in particular, our retail, hospitality and leisure sectors who have, since the start of the pandemic had to face the headwinds of higher input costs such as water, electricity, gas, labour and food/drink costs which are resulting in ‘Realtime’, many of our locally owned businesses, the bedrock of the NI economy going to the wall.
One area that Stormont can take action on from day one, as they have already been provided with the £163m funding from Westminster (as a result of the Barnett consequential formula), is a reduction in business rates for these businesses. Stormont has been provided the necessary funding to grant a 75% reduction in rates relief to these businesses, in DUP parlance, just like the rest of the UK.
As Robert Bell, managing director of SD Bells tea and coffee business in Belfast, when interviewed recently by the BBC said, the situation was “really unfair”. “I do think the 75% rates rebate in England and Wales shines a light on the fact that it is not available to us,” he said.
I am hoping that Stormont’s return will be an excellent success for Northern Ireland. However, the more cynical part of my personality is already concerned that we will be returning to business as usual, where monies have already been allocated to Stormont with a specific policy intent to support the retail hospitality and leisure sectors of the economy, which are in distress are divvied up by the principal parties and spent elsewhere.
Patrick Murdock is a dual qualified Chartered Surveyor and qualified Tax Advisor original from and currently in based Newry. An independent free thinking liberal at heart, prior to establishing his own specialist consultancy, Patrick has built a twenty year career working for a number of global advisory firms and continues to work across markets in the construction, property and final services industries and has considerable experience and practical knowledge of working day today in the UK, Northern Ireland and ROI markets.
He is also Cofounder and operator – The Hub, Newry.
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