Máirtín Ó Muilleoir urges NI cash injection in looming budget

Minister for Finance says brakes should be taken off austerity as UK gears up for Brexit

Northern Ireland Minister for Finance Máirtín Ó Muilleoir: “We need the type of investment in jobs, in infrastructure, which will make us economically competitive.” File photograph: PA
Northern Ireland Minister for Finance Máirtín Ó Muilleoir: “We need the type of investment in jobs, in infrastructure, which will make us economically competitive.” File photograph: PA

Finance ministers in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have called for a cash injection in next month's UK budget.

The brakes should be taken off austerity as the UK gears up to deal with Brexit, spending chiefs at the devolved administrations said.

Stormont's Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, Holyrood's Derek Mackay and Mark Drakeford from Cardiff had met chief secretary to the Treasury David Gauke on Monday.

The three ministers held talks in Newry in Co Down today.

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Mr Ó Muilleoir said: "There is an opportunity for [British chancellor of the exchequer] Philip Hammond on the 23rd of November to take his foot off the austerity pedal in terms of our resource budget, our budget for services, but also we will be saying very firmly to him, and have been, that there needs to be a real injection of capital stimulus into all the economies.

“We need the type of investment in jobs, in infrastructure, which will make us economically competitive.

“The British have been focused on cuts. Heretofore I think they realise that that does not stimulate the economy, and I hope that on the 23rd of November he listens to what we have been saying - and we will be writing to him from this meeting saying that needs to be a priority, a fiscal stimulus on the 23rd of November.”

Mr Mackay said there was consensus on the impact that exiting the European single market would have on gross domestic product (GDP), employment and growth.

‘Hard-right Brexiteers’

“The devolved administrations’ finance ministers do not want to see people punished as a consequence of the mess that the Tory party has gotten us into, the hard-right Brexiteers, and what we have agreed on is we want to protect our budgets and our services for the people that we represent, and therefore we don’t want to see our settlements unpicked.

“We want to see a positive fiscal stimulus to support our economy in these challenging and turbulent times.”

Wales had voted narrowly for an EU exit, while Northern Ireland and Scotland polled to remain in the June 23rd referendum.

Mr Drakeford said the Welsh people did not vote to be impoverished or that their future should be compromised due to Brexit.

He added: "They would have relied on the promises that were made to them that every penny that Wales gets from Europe will come to Wales after Brexit, and that a shiny future remains in prospect for people.

“So, we have agreed today on some very important common points that we will want to put in the discussions that will happen in Westminster starting on Monday, and continuing after that, and where we have common ground we recognise that our voice will be stronger as a result.”

Press Association