THE NORTHERN Ireland Executive and Assembly will face public anger unless they deliver better public services over the next four years, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson has warned.
“Politics is more stable than for many years . . . now it’s time to move beyond the politics of the peace process. Over the next four years, the Assembly will come under intense public scrutiny over what it actually delivers and, if it doesn’t, it risks losing public credibility,” Mr Paterson said.
He was speaking during the opening session of the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester, which met as 30,000 trades unionists protested outside about the impact of spending cuts.
Mr Paterson, who has long favoured giving powers to Stormont to set its own corporation tax rate, said action would be taken shortly to “establish with absolute clarity” the costs of reducing the North’s rate to Republic-like levels.
A ministerial group, to include Mr Paterson and Minister of State Hugo Swire and Ministers such as Minister for Finance Sammy Wilson, will consider this.
“It will seek to establish with absolute clarity the costs, the administrative changes and the potential legislative vehicle for transferring these powers to Stormont,” Mr Paterson added. “It’s essential that we pin down these details before the government decides whether or not to proceed further.”
Last week former Northern secretary Shaun Woodward warned that a corporation tax rate cut would be “a huge gamble”.
However, Mr Wilson’s enthusiasm for the project, which was never full-hearted, has cooled further, it is understood. He is reluctant to trade cuts in the treasury’s bloc grant to Stormont for indeterminate benefits on the other side.
Mr Paterson insisted, meanwhile, that he would legislate to ban Northern Ireland politicians from holding seats in the Assembly and House of Commons.
“I don’t believe that anybody can be a full-time MP and a full-time Assembly member and so I will give you this commitment today, by agreement if possible but by law if necessary, we will end double-jobbing.”
Meanwhile, Mark Cosgrove, Ulster Unionist Party treasurer, said reimbursing Presbyterian Mutual Society account-holders, who lost their savings after its 2008 collapse, showed “the strength of the union”.
