Tax cut ‘would slash Northern Ireland subvention’

Wednesday’s Belfast Telegraph has some more details on the proposals for a tax cut for Northern Ireland. According to the chairman of the Industrial Task Force, Sir George Quigley, the move could reduce the Treasury’s subvention to the North by 40 per cent.

However, ICTU has come out against the proposals.

Peter Bunting, the senior Northern Ireland official of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said it would be politically impossible for a Scottish Chancellor of the Exchequer to slash taxes in one part of the UK and not in Scotland and Wales.

"There is a cosy and deluded consensus in the mantra that reducing corporation tax from 30pc to 12.5pc will be the booster the economy of Northern Ireland needs.

In fact, most private sector economic activity is carried out by companies that pay the reduced corporation rate of 19pc," he said. (Irish Independent)

It’s certainly true that the Scots have already latched onto the issue. However, with the SNP set fair for the Holyrood elections, they won’t necessarily drop it just because the Chancellor blocks a cut in Northern Ireland.