Debate contribution: Executive Budget
Debate contribution by Miss Deirdre Hargey on .
- MLA
- Miss Deirdre Hargey
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 14 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- Executive Budget
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5685354
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thanks very much. I welcome the opportunity to move the Sinn Féin amendment. It is important, as it gets to the core of the Budget challenges and the fundamental issue, which is that we have not received a fair and sustainable funding package. That is a fact recognised not only by the Executive parties but by the independent Fiscal Council, and it is conclusive evidence that confirms that we should be funded fairly and to our level of need. While an Executive Budget is ultimately about choices, the choices are made within a financial framework that has been imposed on us from Westminster. We need to be absolutely clear: the people of the North should not have to pay the price for a funding model that does not properly reflect the needs of our population or the pressures facing our public services. Our health service is under immense pressure. Our schools are dealing with rising costs and growing demand. Public services and communities struggle with the consequences of years of underinvestment and austerity, and families feel the impact every day through the rising cost of living. The Executive have a responsibility to make the best possible use of the resources available to them. Sinn Féin will always support responsible budgeting, transformation and meeting need. That is why our Ministers negotiated the fiscal framework and the transformation fund with the support of the Executive. The British Government have repeatedly presented the funding settlement for the North as generous, but the reality on the ground tells a different story. The current arrangement includes a 24% needs-based factor in the Barnett formula, reflecting the independent assessment that the North requires around 124% of comparable spending per head because of its particular circumstances. That principle is welcome. However, it comes only after the Executive have been pushing for that change. We know that more needs to be done, particularly in the area of reflecting our need. This is just the beginning. It cannot be the end of the conversation. We need a funding model that is fair, sustainable, transparent and, importantly, based on our need, one that recognises the North's particular demographic, social and economic circumstances and provides the Executive with the resources necessary to deliver quality public services. The British Government cannot simultaneously recognise that the North has greater relative need and expect the Executive to deliver more with less. That goes to the heart of the debate today, and it was, I feel, a secondary issue in the motion. We have seen the consequences of that approach before: short-term funding packages, uncertainty from year to year and financial pressures being pushed from one Budget cycle to the next. That is not sustainable. It is not a sustainable way to run our public services. The draft Budget would represent a step towards a multi-annual Budget and, importantly, allow the ability to plan from year to year. Ultimately, however, those Budgets need to be underpinned by the finances that allow the Executive to manage public-sector transformation while ensuring that services can continue to run in the interim. The British Government know that. They have a responsibility to properly fund the commitments that they have made. It must also be done fairly. When we look across these islands, the disparity becomes even clearer. Scotland and Wales have access to significantly greater public investment and, crucially, have greater certainty over their funding, a position that has seen them receive in the region of between £1 billion and £3 billion in additional funding compared with what the Executive receive. That is where I take issue with the SDLP motion. It reduces that fundamental issue of adequate funding to this comment:
"the ... Fiscal Council points to discrepancies".
Additional funding of £1 billion and £3 billion to Scotland and Wales is not just a discrepancy; it is a fundamental flaw in how we are funded. We should not be in a position where people here receive poorer public services because the British Government have failed to provide the funding and the model that properly reflect our need. The principle is simple: funding must be based on what is fair and not on political discretion at Westminster. It must also recognise that the North has suffered from decades of underinvestment. We cannot simply start the clock again and pretend that the accumulated infrastructure deficit and pressures in our health, education and social care systems do not exist. The Executive need certainty. They also need a fair funding settlement. They need a long-term fiscal framework that allows Ministers to plan, invest and, importantly, transform public services rather than constantly managing crisis. That means maintaining a genuine needs-based approach, reviewing the assessment of need and ensuring that the funding available to the Executive keeps pace with the real pressures on our services. The British Government have the resources to do that. Unfortunately, however, they choose to fund war over public services. We believe that they need to reverse that political choice. At this time, what is required is political will. Sinn Féin will continue to argue for a fair deal for the people of the North and have their backs in pursuing a fairer funding model — one that is based on objective need and fairness, not political discretion — because our public services should not be treated as an afterthought. Our people should not be treated as second-class citizens.
I will point out that, for a good section of that, the SDLP was also in the Executive. You often leave that point out. It goes to the fundamentals. If you do not have the proper funding envelope in the first place, you will, of course, jump from crisis to crisis. That is the fundamental issue and one of the reasons for tabling the amendment. We believe that that needs to be front and centre. Why should citizens here receive less than citizens in Scotland and Wales get? It is dressed up by the British Labour Government that, somehow, we get a generous deal. We do not get a generous deal. Thankfully, after a long time of us shouting about it, others have now come onto the page, and hopefully we are all united on that approach. Our people deserve the same opportunity as people anywhere else on these islands to access properly funded health, education and public services. In closing, I must also mention the significance of the joint meeting that is taking place today in Cardiff between the leaders of my party — Sinn Féin — the SNP and Plaid Cymru. That meeting and the discussion among the First Ministers illustrates that our future lies in independence from Westminster and its financial constraints. The meeting also shows what we can do by working together across these islands. Independence would bring full financial powers and the ability to use those powers to invest in and transform our public services for the better and to create a truly healthy economy that is judged not on people who just cannot afford the basic necessities but where we have a people who will prosper and thrive. That is the future that I believe in and the future that we should all move towards.
1,200 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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