Mr. Paul Mac Flynn:

I will start with the fiscal floor. I am glad it is getting much more discussion of late. We must, though, be careful. Regarding getting something along the lines of what was secured by Wales in terms of a minimum funding arrangement, it took a while to get that outcome. Equally, we must acknowledge that all it would do would be to stop the situation in Northern Ireland from getting any worse; it will not make it any better. We would do well to get such an arrangement, but we would want to limit our expectations in this regard.

Much of this context has been based on the recent fiscal council report, which looked at what the public spending needs of Northern Ireland were compared with England or the rest of the UK and stated that if spending in the UK were to be regarded as being at a level equating to 100, then Northern Ireland would be at 120. We would need about an extra 20% in spending in respect of the various factors that just affect Northern Ireland in terms of the provision of public services, as well as in the context of societal and demographic issues. There should be a chance to broaden this debate slightly and ensure we are looking at objective need and capturing the full extent of the spending requirements in Northern Ireland. I have been told by a colleague that trying to explain "objective need" to the UK Treasury is like speaking Swahili. I am not sure how successful we would be in this endeavour, but this should be the aim.

On the housing aspect, we published a report on this issue several years ago, before the current crisis in Northern Ireland's housing sector. Northern Ireland always looked very favourable in terms of its housing market compared with the Republic at that time, but we would have always known anecdotally of troubles looming. We went hunting in the data and the real problem we found was a cohort of people in private rental accommodation for whom, when we examined their incomes, the housing element was what was pushing them into poverty. Under any measure, they should have been in public housing, but because of the lack of growth and the actual reduction in public housing provision over many years, it was not enough to just be poor to get into public housing; it was necessary to have a certain number of other household traits as well. It was this group that had fallen into private rental accommodation because the public housing supply was not available and we did not cater for those people.

What has happened in the UK overall but where Northern Ireland stands out from all the other regions is the escalation in the cost of private rental accommodation. Several things are going on in this context. The first was the pandemic. Interest rates have also increased. This has happened much faster for the Bank of England and this feeds into mortgage repayments and onto the people who are letting out properties. Almost a perfect storm has taken hold in Northern Ireland's private rental market. This was a problem to begin with, but we did not tackle it and it has now become so much bigger. The intervention required is the same, namely, the provision of public housing. It was public housing before, and it is public housing now.