Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Diane Forsythe on 15 June 2026.

MLA

Ms Diane Forsythe

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

15 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Final Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5613481

Read the official Assembly record

Text

At Final Stage, we in the DUP once again welcome the Bill, which gives formal legal status to the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council as an independent body scrutinising Northern Ireland's finances. The Bill delivers on a commitment made in the New Decade, New Approach agreement by providing a clear legislative framework for the council's functions, independence and governance. I thank the Minister, the Department of Finance officials, the Finance Committee staff, my Finance Committee colleagues and all who gave evidence to the Committee throughout our scrutiny of the Bill in order to see it here today. The DUP has been a consistent voice on the need to transform Northern Ireland's public finances. We continue to lead the calls for a fair fiscal framework in particular, one that is underpinned by Treasury funding so that it meets the objective needs of our vital front-line services. That need has never been more evident. I welcome the Executive's combined work on that and the united messaging on the need to continue to make the case to Treasury for funding here. The leader of the Opposition has once again set out his stall in criticising the position with the Budget, yet he has offered no constructive solutions. If the SDLP were in the Executive, would it impose and sign up to a Budget of catastrophic cuts? The statutory grounding of the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council will further bolster its ability to carry out independent scrutiny of our financial situation, continuing the excellent work that it has been doing. At this time of economic uncertainty, public-service delivery faces unprecedented pressures. Having that legally binding oversight body in place should help the efforts to place our finances on a steady footing, and, looking forward, it should spearhead the transformation that we need here. As public representatives, we all know that nothing is more important to our taxpayers and constituents than transparency and accountability when it comes to public money. We need to take steps together to restore public confidence. To date, the Fiscal Council has demonstrated its positive impact in improving transparency, scrutiny and understanding of our public finances. The wide range of reports that it has produced far exceeds what it is required to do. We have seen many reports from the council, including one on the Northern Ireland Water funding model that demonstrated that it is neither fit for purpose nor sustainable.

That clearly shows the range of what is available to the council and its ability to scrutinise across departmental remits and address uncomfortable truths that hamper our collective ability to deliver for households, communities and the economy. The challenge from the Fiscal Council is so important to us.

The Fiscal Council has helped us to gain a better understanding of our public finances. The critical value of the Fiscal Council is in its independence. Financial reviews, opinions, presentations or bids that come from within government are often shaped, or perceived to be shaped, by a particular perspective. If the Department of Finance, which is where the council sits currently, were to present a position, there could be a perception that the Fiscal Council's position within the Department could lead to its bringing forward the Department's, the Minister's or a party-political view. I am not suggesting that that has, in any way, been the case — the Fiscal Council has been excellent — but the legislation will, rightly, remove that potential perception. We need to make sure that the independence of the Fiscal Council is paramount. Throughout the Bill's progress, that point about independence has underpinned our position on the Bill and the positions that we took on the amendments. Where the Fiscal Council sits within the Department, the perception that that creates, the budget parameters and the governance have been key. The clear status of the Fiscal Council as independent is important. As others have outlined, the Fiscal Council has been in operation since 2021 and has demonstrated its professional operation and status, but it has been operating through the Department of Finance. The Bill sets the council apart from the Department of Finance. We believe in the importance of the council's professional independent discretion to select its topical work without political interference, which it has done exceptionally well, time and time again. We believe in the Fiscal Council's ability to apply scrutiny in its fullest form to all aspects of public finance, and we have clearly supported that throughout its work. Other parties have seen an opportunity to bring political points to the Bill, mandating for specific pieces of work to be carried out by the council. When those parties did not get those proposals passed, they framed false narratives. The SDLP tried to mandate the Fiscal Council to produce costed analysis of the Opposition's proposals. That is somewhat unsurprising, as the leader of the Opposition never misses an opportunity, in the Chamber or on the Committee, to make the call for additional funding for Opposition services. In a point of order today, he asked for a review of the privileges that are available to the Opposition. That is a theme that has come through, but it did not pass in this Bill. The focus should be on the independence of the Fiscal Council. The Alliance and SDLP wanted the Fiscal Council to be mandated to produce reports on the "cost of division", without defining that term or the scale of the work in terms of annual staff resources. The Fiscal Council already has the scope, the professional discretion and the bandwidth to consider all the costs of duplicating services. In the debate at a previous stage of the Bill, I said that I fully supported that across the board, especially in the Department of Health. The council does that in its work, where it is relevant, and does not need a specific mandate or applied staff to do it. The Alliance and SDLP amendment would have involved more cost for the Fiscal Council and potential duplication of its work. We believe that the Fiscal Council should be a fully independent professional scrutiny body that sets its own work plan, rather than its work plan being prescribed by political parties, and we have been clear on that throughout the Bill process. We believe that the Alliance and SDLP amendment would have involved more cost. We welcome scrutiny by the Fiscal Council, but at its own professional discretion rather than because of political intervention. An array of false claims was rolled out by both the SDLP and the Alliance Party following a previous Bill stage, including on social media, to say that the Fiscal Council was being blocked from doing specific pieces of work. In fact, quite the opposite was the case. We fully support the Fiscal Council having full and complete professional discretion to do any work that it selects and defines. Nothing is blocked. To be perfectly honest, that is precisely what the Bill does: at its core, it allows scrutiny in its fullest form on an independent legal basis. Putting the Fiscal Council on an independent footing, with its having the independence and credibility to do all that work, is at the centre of everything that we in the DUP have decided as we have applied our scrutiny to the Bill. We fully support the Bill and, as I said, the delivery of the commitment, which was made in NDNA. A separate point has come up in the Bill process. The DUP has long called for a reduction in the number of quangos and arm's-length bodies, of which some 140 are in operation here — a number that we feel is ridiculous for a country of this size. We recognise, however, that the Fiscal Council does not fall into that category. The Fiscal Council has been in operation since 2021, demonstrating its professionalism and status, but it has operated through the Department of Finance, and this Bill is just setting it apart in status. Its operation, structure and funding are already in place. This is about its governance, independent credibility and legal footing. It is not a brand-new body being set up, like the multiple new commissioners being established at running costs of at least £1 million a year for an array of causes. The Fiscal Council is a professional organisation already in existence that deserves full legal status. We believe that the Fiscal Council should be fully independent. We support the Bill, and we welcome its further progression today. Again, we thank the Minister, the Department and all who have worked on it. We congratulate the Fiscal Council on its excellent work and look forward to continuing to work with it in the future.

1,446 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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