Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Alan Chambers on 19 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Alan Chambers

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

19 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4223476

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for his intervention. The Audit Committee has a statutory function to consider and agree the Estimates for the NIAO, the NIPSO and the Assembly Commission. As the 2024-25 Budget will ultimately be reflected in the Main Estimates, it is clear that the Audit Committee will still be able to carry out its scrutiny role. However, for the record, the Audit Committee expects to be afforded the opportunity to deliver its functions as part of ongoing and future budgetary processes. With that in mind, I look forward to early engagement between the Minister's Department and the Committee. That concludes my remarks in my capacity as Chair of the Audit Committee. As health spokesperson for the Ulster Unionist Party, it would be remiss of me not to make a few comments on the situation that faces our health service. A debate on waiting lists will take place in this place tomorrow, but we need to bear in mind the huge, sometimes life-changing, consequences of the disruption that gripped the Department of Health's budget this year. Really difficult decisions were taken, some of which, I suspect, none of us as politicians would ever have taken. For instance, the reduction in quarter 4 funding for targeted waiting list initiatives has been hugely damaging. Thousands of people missed out because of the reduced activity, and, unfortunately, despite the system's best efforts to protect people and prioritise red flags, it is a simple matter of fact that some patients will have come to greater harm. Although I am certain that the Minister has been urgently reviewing what is possible in the short time that remains of this financial year, in reality the scope and scale of what is deliverable before 31 March is limited. Fundamentally, however, if we are ever to get to grips with the challenges weighing down on our health service, we will need a workforce that is appropriately remunerated. It is a matter of huge regret that the previous optimism, when all parties agreed the principle of restoring and retaining pay parity, was so cruelly dashed only two years later with the collapse of the Executive and any prospect of a multi-year funding settlement. The health service, like so many other public services, has been hugely affected by rolling industrial action, but that action could have been avoided if we had had a functioning Executive and Assembly in place. I very much welcome the confirmation of funding from the UK Government for public-sector pay, but, as an Assembly, we urgently need to realise that, until we are able to put in place a more coordinated approach to pay, there will be a huge impact not just on staff morale but on patients' welfare. We could spend hours talking about our health service, as needs must, but as the outcome of the spring Estimates laid out, what the health service really needs is certainty about what is and is not deliverable and about what funding is available, not just today or next week but next year and the year after. Annual budgets will not provide the foundations required for the genuine and sustainable health and social care transformation that the people of Northern Ireland deserve.

535 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:37 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 reviews every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification