I have no wish to argue with you now, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I must say that I was not arguing with you previously. I was simply clarifying the position and the background, as you have not had the privilege of sitting through all the debates on what was deemed relevant to the Bill and the wider Stormont House agreement.
The Executive and the Assembly will have to absorb the Bill’s wider implications. There are implications for the economy and for businesses, too. We have heard from many hon. Members that businesses are well seized of the need to try to take advantage of that. We have no problem with the regime on the balance between the rates and the rules, but we want to ensure that there is no undue assumption that the devolution of corporation tax to Northern Ireland alone will transform our economy. We need more investment in infrastructure and higher education and following the decisions in the Stormont House agreement it is not clear whether our borrowing power, which was originally designed for strategic capital, is now being used to pay for a voluntary exit scheme. There is an opportunity cost as regards the wider economic investments.
I do not wish to use the term long-term economic plan, but without addressing some of the other issues, including providing tools that compare with city deals, growth deals, enterprise zones and so on, and without a new level of commitment on third level education and infrastructure, the Executive might well be getting the novelty of devolved corporation tax without strategic economic perspectives that are other than short term in nature.