Letter: The longer there is no solution to how Northern Ireland can better sustain funding itself within the United Kingdom, the greater the threat will be to the Union
A letter from Edward Ferrin:
Last month, the DUP leader made the comment that: “Northern Ireland is being asked to deliver first-class public services with second-class funding.”
Gavin Robinson also asked Rachel Reeves for Stormont to have borrowing powers and said that working families and businesses “do not need new charges or stealth taxes…on top of continued Treasury under-funding.”
The DUP's fiscal policy asks for more borrowing powers to be in the hands of Stormont. DUP policy is also opposed to devolution of income tax, and other taxes to Stormont and refuses to support local revenue raising for water or prescriptions. In other words, Stormont should have as much money as it wants from London and shouldn’t ever have to make spending cuts or raise more revenue locally.
It’s maybe time some DUP politicians get themselves a calculator, a pen and some paper!
As the NI Fiscal Commission stated, we raised just 19.2% of our local tax take in income tax in 2019-20. Compared to an equivalent 26.2% for the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland taxpayers are clearly not paying enough in revenue to justify more expenditure for Stormont.
There is a very simple explanation for this: Northern Ireland workers earn, on average, less than their counterparts in Great Britain. This naturally poses a huge problem.
The DUP doesn’t have a credible answer to this problem. The party argues that we should maintain a UK-wide tax policy which doesn’t target enough revenue from Northern Ireland taxpayers and then go with a begging bowl to Treasury and ask kindly for more money.
It is quite rich for a unionist party to ask our fellow British taxpayers in Great Britain to pay more for us, while they face public service pressures of their own and we refuse to pay more ourselves. How can any right-minded unionist take the Union for granted in such a care-free way?
Unionists should call this out or risk giving oxygen to Sinn Féin’s argument that a united Ireland is the only solution to our crumbling public services. Each time the DUP says London is underfunding public services here, another knife is put through the argument that public services are better served in the United Kingdom and not a united Ireland.
The biggest threat to unionism on the economy is if Irish nationalism can persuade people that public services and economic growth are better served in a united Ireland. The failure of the DUP and wider unionism to find a way to improve public services and sustain Northern Ireland’s funding model simply invites that threat.
There must be a new, alternative solution to how Northern Ireland can better sustain funding itself within the United Kingdom. There must be a solution that makes Northern Ireland pay more in return for improved public services, enjoying a stronger role as part of the UK.
The DUP have no such solution. The longer there isn’t one, the greater the threat will be to the Union.
Edward Ferrin, Belfast BT14