Debate contribution: Executive Budget

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 22 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

22 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Executive Budget

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5637883

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I suppose that I am bound to respond to the Minister's point of order. First, I am flattered that the Minister thinks that the official Opposition should adhere to precisely the same obligations as Ministers with regard to Assembly business. In fact, I am surprised by the idea that no Member can ever discuss a bit of business that is in the Order Paper. That seems to be a slightly surreal interpretation of rules. Nevertheless, I am sure that we will get a ruling on that. I hope that, in future, that means that the official Opposition in Dáil Éireann will not be saying "boo" about its motions before they are tabled before the Dáil. I look forward to seeing that. I also hope that we never hear any other announcements being trailed in the media. I move to the business of today, however, because it is important business. This is the final Opposition day of the summer term, and, by now, we should have agreed a Budget. We should be scrutinising a Budget. In fact, we should have already scrutinised a Budget. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 — the legislation that, effectively, puts in place the rules for how this place operates and has done since the Good Friday Agreement — is clear: a Budget must be agreed by the Executive before the end of the financial year; that is, before 1 April. That did not happen. For nearly three months, that law has been — I do not know whether you say "broken the law" but the Executive have been in breach of that law. What is supposed to happen after that, once a Budget is agreed, is that a Budget Bill is written, and that provides legal authorisation for spending, alongside a Main Estimates document that sets out the overall spending envelopes for individual Departments. None of that has happened; yet we are days from summer recess. This place will break up at the end of next week. At that point, we will be hurtling towards a 1 August deadline. At the 1 August deadline, the provisions set out in the Northern Ireland Act, as spelled out by the Finance Minister's own permanent secretary in the letter that he sent to other permanent secretaries in April, will kick in. That will mean that the Executive will legally be able to spend only 95% of last year's Budget. That is 95%. That is a 5% cut not even in the proposed draft Budget that the Minister himself introduced in January but in last year's Budget. That would represent brutal cuts, but that, currently, is the legal default that we are hurtling towards. That is a factual legal position that the Opposition are setting out today. That should not be a surprise to anybody, and it should not be controversial that we state it. I am happy to give way to the Minister or, indeed, to any Member of an Executive party who wishes to tell me why I am factually wrong about that legal position. It is in a letter set out by the permanent secretary of the Department of Finance. That is an unacceptable position. It should not be controversial to say that a devolved Government refusing to set a Budget is unacceptable. I will come to the fiscal position, the conversations — or the lack of them — with the UK Government, and the relative funding position of the Executive. I want to state firmly and clearly, however, that it is absurd and unacceptable for a devolved Government simply to refuse to set a Budget. The context is chaos in London. We have had a decade of chaos from successive British Governments, going right back to 2016 and the Brexit referendum, and for years before that we had austerity. Often referred to in this Chamber, rightly, is the fact that, at Westminster, decisions are made that have huge and often very negative consequences for people and public services in this region. The correct respond to the chaos visited by London is not simply to say, "God, isn't London chaotic? Aren't they awful?" but to say, "Yes, they are chaotic. Yes, we would make different choices". That is all the more reason for us to take responsibility here, set a Budget, show leadership to the public of the North and not simply let the chaos in Westminster dictate terms for our people and public services. Yet the latter has been the consistent position of the current Executive and, indeed, previous Executives led by Sinn Féin and the DUP. Of course, for half of the past decade — this decade of Brexit-induced chaos — we did not even have an Executive. They were not even here to set a Budget, so it had to be set for them in London, whether we liked it or not, contributing directly to the decline in public services and the failure to deliver major capital projects, such as the A5 and Casement Park, which would be much further progressed had the Executive not been collapsed a decade ago. All too often, however, our response to chaos in London is to say, "God, look, that proves that London is chaotic". Yes, but we should take more responsibility here. We should show leadership to the public whom we serve, but, yet again today, the response that we see to chaos and, indeed, cynicism from the UK Government is chaos and cynicism from the Executive. As I said, the legal position is clear. In not setting a Budget, the Executive are in breach of the law. I understand, and the Opposition agree with, the Minister of Finance and the Executive's saying that they need the best possible financial settlement. To ward off any accusations that we are simply taking the Brits' side, as it were, let me be clear that we support the Executive in getting the best funding possible from the UK Government. We support that and will make the case for it. Indeed, we did so to the Secretary of State when he was here the other day. No claim for better funding from London justifies what is happening now, however. The Executive cannot say, on the one hand, that the UK Government are not giving us enough money, although they have more than a point when they say that, and, on the other hand, "Our reaction to that is to cut our own Budget even further". It is cutting off our nose to spite our face to cut our Budget by 5% because we do not like the Budget settlement that we have. The best way in which to make a better argument for an improved Budget settlement — a longer-term fiscal framework that works, which is what the Minister and his predecessors said that they wanted — is to take responsibility here, set a Budget and priorities and challenge the UK Government to fund us properly to do transformation. Instead, we invite cynicism. There is cynicism from the UK Government. Yes, the Minister is right when he talks about the Treasury's open-book exercise being, in large measure, an exercise in cynicism, but what is our response to that? It is simply to create more chaos by refusing to set a Budget. As the official Opposition, we have set out today what the consequences of that will be. These are not made-up numbers. We have not extrapolated them using fancy equipment. We have simply looked at the numbers in the Department of Finance's permanent secretary's letter to Departments in April and at the numbers in the Fiscal Council sustainability report that was published last week. The Fiscal Council states that, legally, the Executive have £1 billion less to spend as a result of their not setting a Budget. That is the result of an Executive decision, and it is clearly an unacceptable situation. If it continues to be the case that the Executive do not set a Budget, what are the consequences? It could mean our having hundreds fewer police officers, nurses and teachers than could otherwise be recruited. To be clear, I am saying not that people will be sacked but that we will have much less to spend on recruitment. We will have much less to spend on vital infrastructure, from water to road to rail, and much less to spend on transforming our public services. Those are facts. Do the Executive have a point when they say that the Scottish and Welsh Governments are funded further above their level of need? The Fiscal Council says that they do. We are not disputing that today — we are not arguing against that point — and that is why we will not divide the House on the Sinn Féin amendment, because it is not an unreasonable point to make. What is unreasonable, however, is to respond to that situation by simply refusing to set a Budget. I have never heard a Scottish or Welsh Government — any devolved Administration in Holyrood or Cardiff — challenge their funding settlement from Westminster and say, "We're simply going to refuse to set a Budget". It is not an acceptable response to the cynicism and chaos from the UK Government simply to create more chaos and cynicism in Northern Ireland. That is not acceptable. I need someone to explain to me how imposing a £1 billion cut on our Budget because the Executive want more money from the UK Government works, because I simply do not understand it. We will hold the Executive to account for that failure. When the Finance Minister launched his draft Budget earlier this year, he said that it could be transformational. He said that, ten out of ten, a Budget would be agreed. Neither has turned out to be true, or certainly not yet. There are other Ministers who talk out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to taking responsibility, because they are clearly not taking responsibility for agreeing a Budget. Ultimately, the public send us here to take responsibility. They know that we could use more money and that there are constraints within which a devolved Government operate. They know all those things — they are not stupid — and we, as the Opposition, have never tried to gaslight them, which I was accused earlier of doing. We have never tried to gaslight the public. We have always been honest. The only thing that we have asked the Executive for is honesty with the public in return: set clear priorities and show ambition, but be honest with people and take responsibility. That is not happening. The Executive are failing the people of Northern Ireland by refusing to take responsibility. We are drifting into a summer of chaos. We support calls for more money from the UK Government. We will join the Executive in making those calls — let me be clear about that in order to ward off any inaccurate slurs from Executive party representatives today — but what we will not do is stand aside and passively accept Executive-created chaos. Take responsibility, and we will join the Executive in pressing the UK Government for more support. The status quo is not acceptable. I commend the motion to the House.

1,885 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification