Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 19 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

19 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4223609

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Today we are being asked to support a Budget. It is a complicated Budget that covers all areas of finance relating to many Departments and agencies. There are decisions, though, that need to be taken and people who need to be rewarded, not least our hard-working public-sector workers, who have waited too long for their pay awards. We are led to believe that the Budget might address the key issue of public-sector pay. We wait with bated breath to see whether all the pay awards that are outstanding and that have been allowed to grow and fester over the last 10 or more years will be sorted soon. As ever, I will make a brief reference to why those hard-working public-sector workers — the doctors, nurses, teachers, classroom assistants, civil servants and others — have had to wait. It is because, for five of the past seven years, this place has been collapsed and we have been left without an Executive or an Assembly. Yet, we are back again and cannot even get a straightforward answer or commitment from our First Minister and deputy First Minister that they will not collapse the institutions again any time soon. It would be remiss of me not to also mention that we have heard today that junior doctors have voted for strike action. I am taken by how torn they were about taking that decision. They did not sign up to be medics to strike. They did not become lifesavers to withhold that service. However, they have been pushed and pushed, and they are now beyond the brink. I met them recently, and they told me that it is about more than just pay; it is about the conditions. It is about being able to get a hot drink at 3.00 am when you are in the middle of a 12-hour shift. It is about when they realise that they are one of the few medics who are on duty in a large hospital filled with very sick people. For some of them, it is just about having somewhere to store their coat or handbag safely and knowing that, when they are at work, their property will not be stolen. I hope that that can be addressed. I seek assurances from the Minister that finances will be made available to stop that junior doctors strike. As a member of the Health Committee previously and again now and having been the party's health spokesperson for a number of years, I am concerned about many elements of the budget for the Department of Health. It will underscore a number of key cuts that will dive deeply into our communities.

I thank the Member for the intervention. As a former youth worker, I absolutely understand that, if we do not invest in our young people and give them the best possible start and opportunities, they will be impacted as they grow older, so I agree with everything that she has said. One cut that seemed very cruel was the removal of the core grant scheme for the community and voluntary sector. The scheme had a budget of over £4·5 million that was made available to 62 groups. That was cut by 25%, so that only £3·6 million was made available. That was further cut by 50%, so that only £1·8 million was made available. That is not a cut; that is a decimation of our public funding for organisations that deliver on behalf of the most vulnerable in society. This Budget will lock in those cuts — cuts to organisations such as Action Mental Health, Age NI, Cara-Friend, Children in NI, the Down's Syndrome Association, the Eating Disorders Association NI, Home-Start and Include Youth, to name just a few. We need to ask the Minister why, for example, the Women's Aid Federation has had its funding slashed. The funding was cut by the Department of Health, and that cut is now locked in by the Budget. I quote from the media:

"Sinn Féin has urged the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health to commit to the continuation of the Women's Aid Federation's funding, and even at this late stage, are calling for that action to be taken."

Minister, those were your words to the media just a few months ago. Will you, after publicly calling for the money to be made available, now make sure that that funding is available? What about when we got representatives of 62 organisations together in the Senate Chamber a few months ago and challenged the permanent secretary about those cuts? All the political parties contributed to the video that marked that day.

Finance Minister, your colleague, the chair of the all-party group on children, who invited the permanent secretary to the meeting, said in that video:

"This funding needs to be restored".

We have already seen the disproportionate loss of funding for the most vulnerable in our society: the disabled. It needs to stop. We need to help everybody, and we need to work together. Will you, like your colleague, suggest that we should help everybody, including the vulnerable and the disabled in our society? The Budget underscores the cut, copper-fastens the cut and delivers that cut. The Budget gives grounding for a 25% cut followed by a further 50% cut to the most vulnerable in our society. Mencap, MindWise, the Stroke Association and the Samaritans: cut, cut, cut. Is this Budget really the best start for the Executive? In places, it certainly is not. I call on the Minister to review the allocations and ensure that, in a £28 billion Budget, we are not damaging thousands and thousands of vulnerable lives in our community to save two million quid.

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

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