Budget March 2023: Sammy Wilson wonders if EU will be able to block UK government's budget plans

Among the big announcements from today’s budget, announced earlier by chancellor Jeremy Hunt, were these:

• The inflation rate is expected to plummet from a dizzying 10.7% at the end of last quarter to just 2.9% by the end of this year – which would put it only 0.9% above the UK government’s target;

• And extra £130 million will be given to the currently non-existent Northern Ireland Executive by the UK central government, as part of the Barnett Formula (a complex calculation based, in part, on population size and on changes in public spending for England);

• The UK is set to avoid a “technical recession” (where the economy shrinks for two quarters in a row);

• The government promised “an increase in the pensions Annual Allowance from £40,000 to £60,000 and the abolition of the Lifetime Allowance will remove the disincentives to working for longer”.

• And it will create a series of “investment zones” UK-wide.

The chancellor indicated that the fall in inflation could undermine the impetus behind the rolling strikes which have been taking place across the UK in recent months, including Northern Ireland, by slowing down the ballooning cost of goods – though at time of writing it remains to be seen how trade unions in the Province react to this.

On the subject of “investment zones”, the chancellor’s speech was both intriguing and vague.

He said that there will be 12 such zones set up in the UK, one of which will be somewhere in Northern Ireland.

Mr Hunt described these zones as “12 potential Canary Wharfs”.

Canary Wharf turned a depressed former industrial / docklands area of east London into a kind of second Square Mile, drawing major corporations into new sky-scraping office blocks a few miles to the east of the city’s traditional banking district where the city's main banking district is.

“To be chosen,” said Mr Hunt, “each area must identify a location where they can offer a bold and imaginative partnership between local government and a university or research institute in a way that catalyses new innovation clusters.

“If the application is successful, they will have access to £80m of support for a range of interventions including skills, infrastructure, tax reliefs and business rates retention.”

He also announced some £40m for Northern Ireland, to “extend further and higher education participation” (though it is not totally clear what this means in practice).

Among those reacting was former NI finance minister Sammy Wilson, who wondered whether the full package of budget measures could really be applied to the Province.

"I'd like to know whether the chancellor has looked if those can apply to NI,” he said.

"Given that, even after the Windsor Framework, we are still subject to EU law in NI, still subject to EU state aid laws in NI, and my fear is that when we actually try to apply them we'll find the EU will once again be able to interfere in the affairs of the UK by stopping those kinds of proposals.”

UUP finance spokesman Steve Aiken said that “whilst the £130m additional funding for Northern Ireland will ease some of the shortfalls, even after this increase departmental budgets are likely to remain in turmoil due to the ongoing political stalemate”.