Debate contribution: Executive Budget

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 22 June 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

22 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Executive Budget

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5637939

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I hope that Members will join me in saying, "Slán"

to Keir Starmer and "Good riddance" to the man, because he was a disaster for working-class communities in Ireland, England and elsewhere. His Budgets have been absolutely brutal. As has been said in the debate already, from the end of July, with no Budget agreed, the Executive will be legally able to spend just 95% of last year's allocation. That is a self-imposed 5% cut, with no vote and no mandate from the people who will pay for it. To make matters worse, that 95% is measured against the opening figure, before a single penny of in-year funding. If we layer inflation on top, we are looking at a cut that bites far deeper than the 5% mentioned, affecting services that are already stretched to breaking point. It is not the people who fail to agree the Budget who will pay; it is workers and families, who are already being squeezed from every side. Hospital doctors have been balloted for strike action after being offered a pay rise that does not come close to undoing 15 years of real-term pay erosion. Health and education workers are being driven towards the picket lines simply to stop their wages falling further behind. Those are the same people who hold our public services together, and they are being told to do more for less year after year. The cost-of-living crisis is now a permanent fixture in politics. In Belfast alone — to take one example — the average price of a new let private rent is now over £1,100 a month. House prices here are rising at roughly six times the UK average, which is putting homeownership, and even rent, out of reach for an entire generation. Food and energy prices are still through the roof, forcing thousands of families to make impossible choices. Meanwhile, supermarkets make record profits and not a word is uttered about it. That is the reality in working-class communities across the North: people are not getting by; they are going without. On top of that, the Executive propose to spend 5% less. To be fair to the Finance Minister, he is right to say, as he has done consistently, that Westminster has short-changed this place for years. There is no disagreement from me on that. Nobody should pretend that the Labour Party has been any better than the Tories were before it. We are therefore all in agreement, or are for the most part, that we are funded below our level of need. Many of us know that Westminster does not give a damn about the lives of working-class people here. When, however, the Finance Minister tells us in the Chamber and at the Finance Committee that the only lack of urgency about the Budget is across the water, I have to push back and strongly disagree. The Executive have had months. The choice to drift towards a de facto Budget cut is one that was made in this Building by Ministers from here. We cannot rage against austerity from London while quietly imposing it from Belfast. The community and voluntary sector was dealt a massive blow back in April with the re-profiling of the local growth fund. Shamefully, the Secretary of State ignored the voices of community workers — the experts on the ground — who warned about the disastrous consequences of that. The Executive refused to step in with the necessary funding, however. Tens of thousands of vulnerable adults and young people have now lost access to employment support. Hundreds of jobs have already started to disappear from the sector. It is simply not good enough for the Executive constantly to point the finger at Westminster while refusing to move mountains to support people and the services on which they rely. I would have preferred to support the motion unamended, as it refused to let Executive parties off the hook and demanded that the Minister explain to every worker and family who is bracing for the squeeze why, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, the answer to underfunding is to fund our services even less. Hopefully, the Minister can explain that.

696 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