Debate contribution: Public Finances

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 6 February 2024.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

6 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Public Finances

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4256103

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I congratulate you on taking your role as Speaker. I look forward to working with you and the Deputy Speakers as we go forward for the remainder of the term. I also congratulate the Members who made their maiden speech. Working a maiden speech to the clock is difficult, so congratulations to Phillip Brett, Eóin Tennyson, Diane Forsythe, Danny Donnelly and Nuala McAllister. I chickened out of doing that and did my maiden speech during a debate on legislation where I was not timed. Well done for doing that today. To the SDLP, thank you very much for your contribution today as Opposition. Constructive opposition is welcome. We all know from being on Committees together in the past that working together and being critical and supportive of a Minister are some of the better ways of working, so thank you for that. My party will support the SDLP amendment because, while you have asked for a plan and a costing of that delivery, that is the natural step for what we will have going forward, particularly as we look towards a Budget. Today, we have heard from many Members from across the House, and one thing that we can agree on is that everyone has a shared call for support from the Westminster Government to fund this place in a way that will meet need. A key theme that has been put forward today has been public-sector pay, and a number of Members have made it clear that, while £3·3 billion is a huge amount of money, it will give people public-sector pay security for one year: one year, not for ever. That is why we ask not for a ceiling on the ambitions of the fiscal responsibilities of Northern Ireland but for a fiscal floor that we do not go below. We do not need to put a cap on our people being supported and how their need will be met. As some Members mentioned, sporadic allocations are sticking-plaster amounts, and it is not enough. Childcare has been mentioned often, and I am delighted because my party has worked hard on childcare, especially with Kate Nicholl MLA, to put children first.

In doing that, we can support families and the community, and we can help people to be in employment, have their own money and not be so dependent on the Government.

Health has come up time and time again, and, whether it is domiciliary care or the waiting lists, it is time for us to resolve those issues. However, as the First Minister and deputy First Minister have mentioned, we can only do that if we have enough money to take forward transformation and reform. The £3·3 billion is a first-day help, but it will not take forward the sort of reform that Prime Minister Sunak is asking us to take forward. Others have mentioned, as part of the key themes of today, reform of this place to ensure that we have a sustainable Government that is not going to collapse whereby we cannot change and move things forward because we are not in this place. It is time that we think about that and ask the other Governments to step in and help if we are not able to do it. There is a requirement in the Good Friday Agreement to consider ways forward. It is time that we think about the nature of that agreement, how that agreement has helped us so far and how we can use it moving forward. My knowledge of this place has come from working with the Committee for Communities and the former Minister for Communities. I want to highlight one of the differences that we have in Northern Ireland, and it comes back to the Levelling Up Fund. In the last term of the previous working Assembly, we had a housing strategy agreed, and we were going to put out so many new house builds. We have not been able to do that, and, in fact, that strategy has not been met because we do not have enough money to build those houses. In Westminster, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 enshrines into law Westminster's long-term commitment to regeneration through the speeding up of the planning system and the removal of bureaucracy to enable the building of new homes while undertaking a series of major reforms across the built and natural environment. Here, in Northern Ireland, according to figures provided by the Northern Ireland housing bulletin, we have 45,500 people in housing stress. We have 2,605 people who are deemed as homeless. That is not something to be proud of, but it is something that we need money to help resolve. Without capital investment here — the lack of enough capital investment is outlined in the letter from the Executive to the Prime Minister — Northern Ireland Water's limitations in respect of our water and sewerage system will be an impediment to house building. None of us can forget, "No drains, no cranes". Why is this so important? Without appropriate housing, children do not achieve as much in education, people live in poverty and people have poorer health and well-being outcomes. We have a society that is struggling with the cost of living. We have people who are heading towards extreme poverty because 30% of their income is being spent on rent. That is only one of the problems that we have as a collective House. I remind the House that, while we know all of that, we also know that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Michael Gove MP, handed money back to the Treasury because he could not spend it. In 2022-23, his Department underspent on the affordable housing programme by £600 million. What could we have done with that money had we been included? That is why we say this to the Westminster Government: £3·3 billion is a fantastic starting point — thank you so much — but we need a realistic fiscal floor that can meet the needs of people here in Northern Ireland. If we do not get that, is the Prime Minister saying that people here are not worth it? We are. We deserve better. Our people deserve better. We deserve not just pay parity but equal societal parity with people who live elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Many Members who have spoken today have made the argument very strongly, and I thank them all for that. It is important to say to the public that, yes, we have not been in this place for a very long time, but I hope that you take heart from this collegiate approach of parties that are committed to coming together to make a very strong and clear message to Prime Minister Sunak that we need support and we need investment. We will take forward transformation and we will make reforms, but we need him to come to the plate. We also need his party to realise just exactly how important people in Northern Ireland are and to meet their needs. To that end, I reiterate the call of the motion:

"That this Assembly endorses the letter sent to Prime Minister Sunak by all Executive Ministers"

— and it has been signed by our official Opposition —

"calling for our public finances to be placed on a sustainable footing and for the Executive to have the resources that it needs to deliver effective public services."

That is the clear message from the whole House. Prime Minister, I ask you to come back with a response that shows us that you respect people who live in Northern Ireland as much as you respect your constituents.

1,284 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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