Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Finance to detail any action he will take to mitigate the impact of the UK Government’s decision to impose a 64% cut to the Shared Prosperity Fund on the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland.
Minister of Finance: This poor outcome is the result of a succession of bad decisions by this, and the previous, British Government. The Shared Prosperity Fund failed to replace vital EU funds after Brexit. And now matters have been made even worse with this 64% reduction, due to the shift towards a mainly Capital profile.
As well as my ongoing and substantial engagement with British Government Ministers on this issue, I brought the matter to the Executive on 22 January, after which the Executive jointly wrote to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed, detailing the devastating impact this latest decision will have. With one voice, the Executive called on Mr Reed to work with his Ministerial colleagues to immediately rectify the profile of the Local Growth Fund here with a more favourable Resource allocation.
The responsibly to fix this rests squarely with the British Government. I will continue to press Westminster to urgently change its approach and amend the profiling of the Local Growth Fund to one that better reflects need here.
ENDS
Your MLA 