16th October 2026

Nicola Grant Workers Party representative for Newry and Armagh has called on all Northern Ireland MPs at Westminster to back a motion calling for a windfall tax on banks to fund help with the cost-of-living crisis facing workers in low-paid precarious employment.

Grant said more workers are having to turn to food banks as the wages and benefits they are paid does not meet the cost of daily living essentials and it is unfair that banks are accumulating huge profits from hikes in interest rates while ordinary workers cannot achieve even a modest level of living standards.

She continued, "While the Workers Party supports the call in relation to banks. We have been lobbying for caps on supermarket prices to help working class households escape the debt trap. Workers are using credit cards and other methods of borrowing just to afford the basics. She said if the government are not going to introduce legislation then it should introduce a windfall tax on supermarkets who are also making obscene profits while workers and their families go hungry.

"Our MPs at Westminster should be pushing for this type of legislation that would benefit the entire working class across Northern Ireland as well as the United Kingdom. This type of legislation along with the Good Jobs Legislation and the Anti-Poverty Strategy that the Northern Ireland Executive has failed to introduce could help those who are locked in poverty and the debt trap."

The Workers Party representative concluded, "Poverty and multiple deprivations and health inequalities are on the increase yet our political leaders in Northern Ireland do not bring urgency or outrage to these generational inequalities working class people have suffered for decades on their watch. Poverty, ill health homelessness, educational insecurity are all injustices inflicted on working class families, it is time these issues took centre stage."