Select committee: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Recommendation 10
First Report - Investment in Northern Ireland
Published 8 Nov 2022
Paragraph 60
Addressed to Northern Ireland Executive; Northern Ireland Office
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Investment in Northern Ireland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We understand the importance of education and skills in growing Northern Ireland’s economy and providing jobs for people in all parts of society. Therefore, we recommend that current and future Government investment, through the UKSPF and City and Growth Deals for example, at least match existing EU funding in this area and take account of the Executive’s skills strategy and NI’s growth sectors to address the skills gap. We also note the dissatisfaction towards the apprenticeship levy in Northern Ireland, where businesses do not see an identifiable return on their contributions. The Government must work with the Executive to ensure that the money which businesses contribute to the apprenticeship levy is ringfenced, so it is used for its intended purpose.
From: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, First Report - Investment in Northern Ireland (HC 85), paragraph 60, 8 November 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 2 February 2023 (deadline 8 January 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's report on investment in Northern Ireland sets out funding already allocated and published, says several areas are for the Executive or local partners, and declines some specific requests.
- On Levelling Up, it says the first round gave 2.9% to Northern Ireland and Rounds 1 and 2 together £119.8m, which is "3.16% of the Fund".
- On New Deal funding, it "can confirm" that funding provided to Northern Ireland Executive Departments "will be ringfenced", and says the Secretary of State will make further decisions "in due course" on the remainder.
- On trade agreements, it says it "consider[s] it unnecessary" to provide separate explanatory memoranda on how agreements interact with the Protocol, and that impact assessments do not currently consider specific Protocol measures.
- On the university cap and City and Growth Deal day-to-day resourcing, it says these are matters for Executive Departments and local Deal partners respectively; on engagement with local stakeholders it "will explore how this can be best achieved".