Our economy is unbalanced, unhealthy and unsustainable. Only massive subvention from London permits the standard of living to which we have become accustomed. All industrialised countries, including the UK are having difficulty in balancing their budgets, and the pressure on the subvention is likely to grow.
Growing our own economy will not be easy. Not least of our problems is the huge attraction of London and the South East to those with skills and capital. In addition, we are a peripheral region, with a small domestic market, physically isolated from potential export markets.
We need to support our local small and medium enterprises and realise that FDI and lower corporation tax are not the silver bullets that our current executive believes; indeed, a company needs to be profitable to pay corporation tax in the first place. We also need to focus on raising our enterprise creation rate.
I support the devolution of fiscal powers to the Assembly. The devolution of corporation tax on its own will not be sufficient, it may even be counterproductive; I wish to see the devolution of income tax and stamp duty. If we are to keep our best and brightest, we must be able to offer financial incentives, a vibrant cultural life, a great education system, world class health care and to do all that we need political stability and a unifying vision.
Some suggest that the solution to our small private sector is to cut employment in our public sector. I disagree. I believe that the focus should be on growing the private sector, not cutting public sector employment before new jobs have even been created, or at the expense of providing the quality of public services we should all be able to rely on.
To increase the local enterprise creation rate I believe that we should set up a public sector Northern Irish Co-operative and Social Enterprise Development Agency, modelled off many similar agencies already set up throughout the rest of the UK, as well as giving councils more power to support local small businesses.
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
The headline unemployment figures are repeatedly trumpeted as a good news story. The reality for many, particularly the young, is anything but. One of the great tragedies for Northern Ireland is the level of emigration by our well educated and motivated young people.
The unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds in Northern Ireland is 21%, which is just above the UK average but this does not consider the huge numbers that leave our shores.
The economic inactivity rate is significantly higher than the rest of the UK and our productivity levels significantly lower.
I am committed to tackling youth unemployment; linking skills, training and jobs and significantly improving careers advice, but there is a missing element.
The world is awash with capital, it is short of people with skills, but people with skills are highly mobile. If we are to attract investment, we must make it possible for those with skills to remain in Northern Ireland. Only if we can maintain a skill base will we attract long term sustainable investment.
We should reverse the cut in university places and offer a start-up loan scheme to recent graduates that works in a similar way to their student loans. We should also offer better financing options to part-time students.
I am convinced of the value of Science and Arts to our society. Both provide opportunities for employment, education, and dialogue and should be protected.
CHILDCARE
Better childcare provision helps more people move into work, helping to grow our economy and quality of life. Yet, our poor treatment of childcare providers has led to a situation where childcare provision is not only inadequate, but going down, leading to higher costs and lower quality.
We need to provide better support – including financial – to parents and to childcare providers in Northern Ireland and conduct a review of the current systems in place for their management and regulation.
OPEN DATA
In a knowledge economy, open data presents many opportunities to provide better public sector and private sector services, enhancing our countries economy and quality of living. I support the growth of open data provided by our government.