Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 19 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

19 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4223482

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for his intervention. I will come to those exact points as I continue my remarks. There is no doubt that the continual cycle of the collapse of the institutions does nothing to deliver for our children and young people. It is beholden to everyone in this place to commit to removing the veto from politics in Northern Ireland on that basis. I turn back to my remarks in relation to a funding settlement that reflects our objective need. Alliance has been very clear in all our contributions on the issue that that needs-based adjustment needs to be more in the region of 127%, which my colleague Eóin Tennyson referenced, to better reflect that need. I assure Members that we will continue to make that case, not least so that the investment required in our schools can be made in the future. In addition to my comments on teacher pay when I spoke as Chair of the Committee, it is vital that the Finance Minister makes an urgent decision on the pay and grading review for non-teaching staff. I have already submitted a question to the Minister in that regard, and we do not have a clear timescale as to when that will be delivered. I will welcome any detail that she can provide today on that issue, because if we fail to address the huge issues around pay and terms and conditions for our non-teaching support staff, it is very difficult to see how we can avoid further hugely disruptive industrial action, which has only the outcome of impacting on our children and young people and, in particular, our children who attend special schools. I will make a further comment on capital investment in education. While any moneys coming to education for capital projects via the UK Government's financial package will be welcomed, and I will be the first to welcome them, concerns have been raised that the UK Government will seek to reheat previous funding streams such as funds from 'A Fresh Start'. They were previously earmarked for shared and integrated projects. Many schools across Northern Ireland are relying on that pot of funding for their new buildings and extensions. Any loss of access to that funding would be an entirely retrograde step in my view. I ask the Finance Minister, as we look to future Budgets and future resource that will be available to the Department of Education, to provide urgent clarity as to the position around Fresh Start funding, specifically in relation to the financial package from the UK Government, and to clarify what assurances she can offer schools that their projects will not be jeopardised. We should not just seek to ensure that education is appropriately funded. We should, of course, do so, but there is an urgent need for the reform and transformation of education on multiple fronts. Investment without reform will not deliver either financial sustainability or the excellent system that our children deserve. I will highlight a few areas of priority that it will be vital to address if we are going to deliver financial efficiency and sustainability. I highlight SEN services. They must be properly resourced, but they must also be transformed to ensure that there is a clear focus on early identification of need, meaningful early intervention and a commitment to deliver SEN education in line with the very best international practice. Our system of area planning needs to be overhauled to transform it from the cumbersome and, at times, unnecessarily competitive system that we have today and to ensure that it is open, independent, transparent and focused on the needs of local communities. It must work to promote new models of school management that deliver sustainable schools, where children from all communities are educated together in the classroom. The Department must take seriously the financial impact of our divided school system and take clear steps to address it systematically. A proper audit of the cost of division in education is long overdue, and if the Education Minister is listening to the debate, I urge him to take that forward. Tackling educational disadvantage must be prioritised, yes, through investment — I will be a strong advocate for proper investment to deliver the recommendations of the 'A Fair Start' report — but we also need to look seriously at the systemic factors that widen attainment gaps between the least well-off pupils and their better-off counterparts, not least the impact of our system of academic selection.

We are all aware of the financial pressures facing education this year and into next year. They have been building year-on-year for some time. As Daniel McCrossan highlighted, that has not been helped by our history of stop-start government in Northern Ireland, which has made the delivery of multi-year Budgets and proper strategic planning in education impossible, representing a failure of our children and young people. I urge that, today, as we consider the Budget Bill, we make clear our commitment not just to delivering sustainable finances for this place but to ending the role of the veto in our politics, giving the public the reassurance that they need that we have a stable Administration as we look to the future. We must reform these institutions, if for no other reason than to provide the stability that the public so desperately need. I will always argue for sustained and radical investment in education for our children and young people, but we also need a plan to deliver not just investment but meaningful transformation that will give us a modern, progressive and better-integrated education system that serves all pupils, regardless of economic background, and delivers equality of opportunity for all.

946 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.

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