Business Attitudes To Devolution In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Between the 23rd and 25th of February 2000, Ulster Marketing Surveys carried out research to ascertain the views of the business communities of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, with regard to the impact of devolution on the prospects for business, and attitudes towards the possibility of the UK joining the EMU. In each country, 100 senior business people (directors / proprietors of private sector companies) were interviewed by telephone from Ulster Marketing Survey's Belfast-based Telephone Research Centre.

At the outset, all business people were asked if they thought that their respective Assemblies would be good or bad for business. Whilst in neither Scotland nor Wales did a clear majority consider that their assemblies would be "good" for business, (46% and 48% respectively), there was an overwhelming endorsement from the Northern Ireland business community for the Northern Ireland Assembly: 79% said it would be good for business, with only 1% taking the opposite view (20% were undecided).

Overall, it was the Welsh business community that seems to be least happy with the impact of devolution: 23% of Welsh business people thought their Assembly would be bad for business, compared to 14% of Scottish business people.

Asked how they would personally vote if there were another Assembly Referendum tomorrow, the Welsh business community was most divided: a narrow majority of 54% would vote in favour, whereas 37% would vote against (9% did not know). In Scotland, the picture is still one of very divided opinion, although support for the Assembly rises to 59% compared to 27% who would vote "no". Against this background, and in view of the much greater cultural and political issues at stake concerning the Northern Ireland Assembly, it was intriguing to find that the Northern Ireland business community is overwhelmingly in favour of the idea of devolution through the Assembly: 82% said they would vote in favour, compared to only 6% who would vote against the Assembly (12% did not know). (It is important to bear in mind with regard to the Northern Ireland results, that this question was asked at a time when the Assembly has been suspended by Westminster as a result of General de Chastelain's reports concerning IRA decommissioning. However, the Assembly remains in being, pending a current review of the position.)

One of the other key issues of great importance to businesses, and which concerns the degree of economic control to be exercised by central Government, is European Monetary Union. At present, the UK remains outside the EMU, notwithstanding the launch of the European currency, the Euro. In both Scotland and Wales, majorities of business people are of the opinion that the UK should not join EMU, and this opinion was most stridently expressed in Wales, where 60% of senior business people were opposed, compared to 52% in Scotland. In Northern Ireland, business opinion was much more divided, with no clear majority one way or the other, although the balance of opinion went along with the opposition recorded by their Scottish and Welsh counterparts.

When asked for their views of the impact on their own businesses if the UK switched to the Euro, the three business communities consistently emerged as uncertain, and divided. However, perhaps the most salient finding is that 3 businesses in 10 (across all 3 regions) definitively feel that a switch to the Euro would actually be bad for business: further analysis of the findings shows that service sector companies are much more apprehensive about the prospects under the Euro than are manufacturing businesses.