povertyandsocialexclusioninuk
TRANSCRIPT
Response to Northern Ireland’s DraG Budget: http://bit.ly/a4XEns
Looked at impact of Spending Review on living standards in Northern Ireland and especially the living standards of those with the lowest incomes Highlights:
• Treasury disinvestment in NI = £3.48 billion by 2014/15
• Capital investment strategy for 2008-‐2018 = shorXall of £4.5 billion
• Loss of 38,000 jobs, half from public sector
• Job loss – dispropor]onate impact on women
• Job losses + cuts in value of key benefits = increase in poverty
• Dispropor]onate impact on regions
Response to Northern Ireland’s DraG Budget:
• Corpora]on Tax reduc]on: Following Richard Murphy’s report http://bit.ly/ltl3CB
“poor use of £280million with no certainty of significant job crea]on”
HM Treasury paper Rebalancing the Northern Ireland Economy Core assump]ons:
• Deficit reduc]on (‘sustainability’) • Rebalancing
Deficit reduc]on (‘sustainability’):
• Corporate tax avoidance (tackle this before reducing CT) • Financial regula]on – interna]onal, domes]c (major challenges to turn finance from specula]ve gambling to socially useful ac]vity)
• Sustainability – financial concept (Treasury paper based on outdated concept of ‘sustainability’)
• Alterna]ve concepts: social, environmental
Rebalancing:
• Treasury version: public v private (public bad, private good: reduce business taxes and private sector employment will fix NI economy)
But other types of rebalancing:
• Reduce size of financial services sector • Sectoral growth of manufacturing, cultural industries, knowledge economy (and role of educa]on + training in this)
• Regional dominance of S East of England (enterprise zones will not fix regional imbalances in employment and investment)
• Gender audit/budge]ng (Where’s the equality proofing? The words ‘women’, ‘equality’ do not occur in the Treasury document)
• Carbon accoun]ng (green economy) (Growth accounts vs green accounts e.g. Puma -‐ http://bit.ly/lUZTSl)
Devolu]on of fiscal powers: A9rac:ons: • Beyond a poli]cs of spending
• Enabling budgetary responsibility • Genuine local responsibility (or Treasury administered tax haven?)
“nothing less than radical decentralisa:on, to reach every corner of the country” (David Cameron)
Conclusion If we go down the road of reducing CT rates we must do so on the basis of social condi]ons and rebalancing the economy on terms that are democra]cally decided in N Ireland. (If this cannot be done, we need other instruments.)