Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 19 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

19 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4223517

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I rise to speak again in a Budget Bill debate. From my recall of all the debates on finance and Budgets that I have taken part in, there has never been a satisfactory process in order that this place can scrutinise properly a Budget Bill and the finances of the Executive. We are no different today with this Budget Bill. Under normal circumstances, the Committee would have had much more time to scrutinise the Bill, which would have followed on from the usual Estimates process and the Vote on Account. Those processes would have given a clear indication of the Budget's direction of travel. This Bill simply makes provision for Departments and arm's-length bodies to remain funded until the end of the financial year, as well as setting a 65% Vote on Account for next year's Budget and allowing movement between the Consolidated Fund and the Departments and their arm's-length bodies for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 financial years. I always take exception to Standing Order 42(2), which gives the Finance Committee the power to grant accelerated passage, as opposed to Standing Order 42(3), which gives the Assembly that power. I always take exception to being asked whether appropriate consultation has taken place. On this occasion and on many others, that is simply not the case, so I have a problem with that question being asked. It is not true to say that there has been appropriate consultation. However, we also realise why the Bill needs to proceed via accelerated passage. Worse than that, Standing Order 42(5) has been suspended, and accelerated passage has shrunk from 10 days to two. We are not in a very good or comfortable place. Not only are we, as an Assembly, not in a very good or healthy place, how can the Executive be? Ministers have been in post for only a matter of days, and we already have a Budget Bill before us. There is nothing strategic about that. However, I understand why: there are Departments that will run out of money. Earlier today, I was interested in an answer that the Economy Minister gave to a question from Claire Sugden. He said that Ministers had been asked where they cannot spend money, rather than where they can. We are in a very bad place. That brings me to the briefing that we received in the Finance Committee today from departmental officials. They told us that two Departments in particular — the Department for Communities and the Department of Education — are at risk of running out of money before the end of the financial year. Think about what that means. By the way, Education and Communities are both under DUP Ministers. Think about the Department for Communities. When I asked whether it was about running the Department, the answer was no. It is about delivering the benefits system, including personal independence payments, DLA, universal credit and all those benefits that are sprinkled down to support our most vulnerable. That, basically, is the position that we are in. I do not want a message to go out that, now that the Executive are back and the Assembly is here, all is well and everything will be rosy. Quite frankly, it is not. It is quite clear that the biggest burden on our Departments is the pay settlement. That is about right, because we need to invest in people. We need to ensure that, as the money sprinkles through the Departments, all pay settlements are resolved, not just those affecting parts of Departments or some workers and staff. I have a real issue — it has been raised here today — about non-teaching staff, bus drivers, classroom assistants and cooks. All of that worries me. We should look at not just the front-line services but all the ancillary services, and support those people. I hope that the Minister takes that on board. I do not know how much the Finance Minister deals with the Education Minister and the other Departments in those negotiations, but we have to be mindful of that in the Assembly when we scrutinise those things. I go back to the point that I have made endless times before. We are publishing and agreeing a Budget, yet we have no sign of a Programme for Government and no sign whatsoever of a strategic direction, so how can we really evaluate the need out there when we are doing this back to front? If we had time, we should have a Programme for Government that is then funded through our Budget system. We cannot get to that place. To be fair, we have never been in that place. Basically, what we have done with the Budget is pack £18 billion, wrap it up in black boxes, as Steve Aiken said, into the back of a car and release the handbrake. We do not have a satnav, a direction, an outcome or a place to go to yet, and we have just released the handbrake. That worries me. It should worry us all with regard to the detail. What also worries me is that some in the Chamber think that it is a good idea to have additional fiscal powers. Really? You want additional fiscal powers when we do not even get to see the detail of a Budget that we are being asked to pass and that will distribute 65% of next year's Budget. Without seeing the Vote on Account and without seeing the detail, that is worrying. What about our charitable sector? What about the organisations that do sterling work out there and do it far better than government ever could? What about funding for them? What about infrastructure and capital investment? If we do not get our act together — we have never had our act together on infrastructure — people will die. It is not just health-related spending that saves people's lives. People die when we do not invest properly in our infrastructure. We have not done that — ever. I have heard many people talk today about big, bad Tory austerity. I get that with regard to how the Tory party has governed over the past number of years. However, you cannot really talk about big, bad Tory austerity on the one hand when, on the other hand, our Departments hand money back. How can you talk about austerity and not having enough money when the Department of Health and others — this is not just the Department of Health — hand back millions? We have to get real in this place. The Departments here do not spend money well — they do not.

I thank the Member for his contribution, because he makes a valid point. Stop-start government does not always work or should not work. It hurts people; I get that. Parties over the years have made strategic political decisions on that stuff. However, I can tell you this now: even when we do have government, it hurts people. For two years, when the Assembly was up and running, it hurt people. It closed businesses down; it ruined livelihoods; it closed our schools; it deprived our children of their education; and it stumped development in our toddlers. All in all, the Assembly sat like a zombie Parliament and let that happen. Where in this Budget —.

The Member mistakes me: I am talking about the Assembly being a zombie Assembly, not the Executive. The Executive make decisions, and they have been hurtful. My party has stood up against and voted against those decisions many times and has sped up the return to normal.

Yes, I will give way.

Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry, but it is not good enough for Members to say, "We didn't want to do this", and, "We didn't want to do that", when you caused so much hurt to our people out there. From September 2017 to June 2018, 1,731 pupils had an absence level of 50% or greater, with 523 pupils missing over 80% of school. That changed dramatically with lockdown philosophy. The absence levels for pupils from September 2021 to June 2022 show that 4,000 —

Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. I raise those figures because, frankly, I see nothing in the Bill that recovers the hurt caused by the last Executive and the Assembly, which did not scrutinise and do its job properly. Where in the Budget Bill do we see an acknowledgement that hurt was caused and that we could have done it differently and a plan for how we fix it? Nothing in the Budget Bill fixes the hurt that was caused by the previous Executive, when the Assembly should have been scrutinising them. Given my lack of faith in this place to scrutinise bad legislation, you can understand my nervousness around allowing a Budget Bill to allocate 65% of next year's Budget without seeing any real detail, strategic vision or direction as to how we will proceed. That scares me. Frankly, if it does not scare me — for the benefit of Hansard, I see Members around the Chamber laughing. How funny it is. We have hurt people, destroyed businesses, hurt children's education and hurt toddlers' development, yet people think that it is funny. That is the state of play as we see it.

Yes. I will, Mr Deputy Speaker. I respect your ruling. The Member must realise that the Assembly is a different place from the Executive. When decisions are taken —

It is. It is a different place. When that is blurred — this man is now a member of the Opposition. From what I see, there is more opposition in my little finger. The Opposition said today that they were not happy with accelerated passage, and then they abstained. What sort of opposition is that? Deadly. There is more opposition and more scrutiny in my little finger than we see in the official Opposition. I look forward to seeing them up their game as we go along with this procedure and process. The fact remains that we do not see enough detail quickly enough to be able to make informed decisions around the Budget for this place, and that will hurt our people. At the minute, there is no strategic vision whatever. We have lifted the handbrake from the vehicle, and it is running down the hill. We have done that simply to make sure that some of the Departments — not just the two I mentioned; there will be others — do not run out of money. What I really worry about, however, is what we will put in place for the next financial year if we have already allocated 65% of that Budget. It seems to me that the Finance Department officials are not that hopeful that there will be a Budget in good time for next year, given that they have allocated 65% and say that that will take them well into the summer recess. It looks like a rocky road with regard to finalising strategic streams of finances to our Departments to ensure that we cover the costs and burdens. Another important issue relates to some of the decisions that the last Assembly made. I name the climate Bill, which was costed at billions of pounds — £2·3 billion was reported in the press at the weekend. Where is that factored into this Bill? Where are the burdens of the past — of the previous Assembly and Executive — factored in? Where is that costed? That is a massive question that the Assembly cannot yet answer. Not only can the Assembly not answer it; the Executive cannot answer it either. There are many issues going down this road that I really worry about. We in the House should be assured that we will have to take a lot of difficult decisions. I hope that all the parties in the Assembly will scrutinise this properly to ensure that we do not hurt people, as we have in the previous two years when the Assembly and Executive were not running. I hope, but we will wait and see.

2,017 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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