The latest workforce statistics prove the Northern Ireland Executive “has failed hard-working people in Northern Ireland” by allowing the economy to fall further behind the rest of the UK, according to NI Conservatives’ spokesman, Johnny Andrews.
“In the UK as a whole, the number of people claiming jobless benefits has taken its biggest fall on record, unemployment is down and weekly pay is up”, Johnny said. “The Conservatives’ long-term economic plan is showing incredible results. Yet, in contrast, Northern Ireland has the highest unemployment rate, the highest rate of people claiming benefits and economic inactivity is actually rising. On almost every indicator the Executive is either going in the wrong direction or has failed to keep up with progress in the rest of the UK. The simple reason is a spectacular failure to prioritise growing the private sector and helping people into sustainable jobs.”
“Northern Ireland remains uncompetitive, with outdated employment law which is out of step with the rest of the UK. There is no coherent strategy to get companies exporting, in order to bring more money into the economy. There has been a failure to implement enterprise zones, which could boost exports and speed up the planning process. The private sector is now suffering further as the Executive cancels important services provided by subcontractors and fails to use money which has been made available to build infrastructure. In fact, improvements in the job market have been due, almost exclusively, to the situation nationally and in spite of Executive policy.”
“If it’s serious about building a successful, rebalanced economy for the future of Northern Ireland, Stormont needs to start getting behind the private sector properly. That means reforming employment law in line with the rest of the UK, using powers to introduce enterprise zones which reward companies that export and having a pipeline of ‘ready to go’ infrastructure projects to boost the construction industry, among other measures. It also means doing the hard work of reforming government departments, rather than taking the easy road of targetting spending cuts first at front-line services, provided by contractors. If the Executive continues to duck these difficult decisions and ignore the long-term picture, then our economy will fall even further behind the rest of the UK.”