Coronavirus: Rates relief 'would cost £200m', says Murphy

Conor Murphy

Conor Murphy was speaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster

NI Finance Minister Conor Murphy has said it would cost about £200m for Stormont to implement a business rates holiday similar to England's.

The chancellor said tens of thousands of England's retail, leisure and hospitality firms will not pay any business rates in the coming year.

Companies with a rateable value of less than £51,000 will be eligible for the tax holiday, Rishi Sunak said.

The measure applies to firms including shops, cinemas, restaurants and hotels.

It is part of a package of "extraordinary" measures to support the UK economy in the face of disruption from the coronavirus outbreak.

"We need to figure out the cost of that. Our estimation at the moment is that would probably cost an additional £200m," Mr Murphy told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster.

"We may be fortunate to get half of that as a consequence of the announcement in England, but that will still leave us with over £100m shortfall.

"Now the executive may decide that that's what it wants to do, but it needs to understand, as others who call for this need to understand, the figures involved."

Mr Murphy said if people decided that was how they wanted to spend the "limited resources available to us" that is a position for the executive, but it would have an "impact on what we can can actually spend in dealing with coronavirus and the public health threat to citizens".

"It will have an impact across a range of other services as well," he added.

"These are the choices that have to be made."

Mr Murphy said he recognised that businesses are "under additional pressure as a consequence of what is yet to emerge with the impact of coronavirus, nevertheless the executive has to take the decisions in the round".

"That's why I couldn't come out yesterday and say 'of course we will match that', because we will need to understand the figures, we will need to understand the implications for other spends and we will need to take decisions accordingly," he added.

'Unforgiveable'

Daniel Donnelly from the Federation of Small Businesses Northern Ireland said that firms in the region needed to see the same support in terms of rates relief as their counterparts in the rest of the UK.

"Small businesses have been frustrated in recent years to see other parts of the UK getting more generous rates relief," he said.

"I think they will view it as unforgiveable if our executive doesn't step up and support businesses at this turbulent time."

Two new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, bringing the total to 18.

Both cases are adults and their transmissions can be traced to a previously reported case who had travelled from northern Italy.

On Thursday, NI Health Minister Robin Swann said there was the "ability to ramp up the number of tests we can perform on a daily basis" if required.

"We are testing people as they present to us - they come to us through the 111 call centre or through their own GPs," he added.

"We have the testing ability to test the numbers that are presenting to us at this moment in time and we're on top of that.

"We have the ability to ramp up the number of tests we can perform on a daily basis and that's done in our lab here in Belfast.

"When we get a positive result from our lab in Belfast we send that sample across to the labs in England for second validation, to make sure there is a surety in that result."

Robin Swann has said there is the ability to increase the number of tests

The government is expected to announce on Thursday that it is stepping up its response to the coronavirus.

It is anticipated the UK will switch to tactics aimed at delaying its spread, rather than containing it, when the government's emergency committee meets.

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