Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 19 February 2024.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

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 4223622

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome Dr Caoimhe Archibald to her post and wish her well in it. Having sat through a long debate, I note well the Minister's perseverance. As has been reiterated by Members in this Budget Bill debate, the legislation provides legal cover for expenditure in 2023-24 — the current financial year — and reflects spending that has already occurred or that will occur in the first half of the new financial year. The 2023-24 financial paper must be viewed against the backdrop of the lack of an Executive and the role that the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland Office have played in the Budget allocation for this year, without monitoring rounds or transparency in relation to how much of the previous year's overspend has been repaid. That has led us to where we are today. I acknowledge the extremely pressurised environment in which the Department of Finance staff — indeed, finance staff across all Departments — have worked over the last number of years, and I sympathise with them. As the Alliance spokesperson for communities, I have attended meetings with the permanent secretary, Colum Boyle, and his finance staff on several occasions. I thank them for their work and recognise the level of stress that they have endured while aiming to deliver the impossible task of meeting needs, political objectives and priorities in the context of an increasingly restrictive financial position. The figures in the Budget Bill reflect the fact that we are again discussing a single-year Budget. Every day, I hear from organisations that work in partnership with the Department for Communities to deliver support for people who are in receipt of benefits or in housing stress, as well as for our sports and arts sectors, local government and those who work in other areas within the remit of the Department for Communities. Those people speak as one: they all need an end to single-year Budgets. The lack of clarity about this year's Budget and future years' financial priorities has a negative impact on many of our arm's-length bodies and key partners, including those in the community and voluntary sector. We see many skilled people leaving the sector because they can no longer live under the pressure of an uncertain future. I ask all the Members of the House what Northern Ireland would look like if we had no funded community and voluntary sector. We would be in trouble. The concordat agreement with the community and voluntary sector is moot. Unless and until we have a sustainable Executive and Assembly, those working in the community and voluntary sector and our key partners will have no faith in this place or its commitment to meeting the needs of the community. I support reforms whereby we will never again come to the House at the eleventh hour to debate finances in this way. By updating the processes of the House, we could at last give everyone who has been elected to the House an equal vote and end the vetoes. The Budget adds nothing new to the Department for Communities. While they are welcome, the additional amounts outlined simply patch over the fractures caused by a lack of sustainable finance. While all politicians from every party would like to debate how we are meeting need, the stark fact of the Budget Bill is that, over the past year, the most vulnerable continue to be left behind. During and immediately after COVID, Northern Ireland received additional moneys to cope with the pandemic. With the end of the pandemic came the end of significant levels of related resourcing, but we have not returned simply to pre-pandemic levels of financial support. The level of funding provided to Northern Ireland and specifically to the Department for Communities is not meeting need. For example, during the past year, the Department for Communities has not had enough money to start building the target number of new social homes, leaving more than 45,500 people in housing stress, which the Chair of the Committee for Communities, Colm Gildernew, referenced. During the past year, we have had a reduction in the money available for discretionary support and discretionary housing payments. More people are living in poverty, as confirmed in the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) 'Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report, 2021-22' headline figures, which show that 16% of individuals are living in relative poverty and 13% in absolute poverty. That is a disgrace. Cutting support to such vulnerable people cannot continue into next year. During the past year, the cost to provide temporary accommodation for the rising number of people in housing crisis meant that the ability to invest in prevention of homelessness is nowhere near what any of us would want it to be. The Department for Communities has just about kept its head above water. Northern Ireland can no longer afford to have such harmful single-year Budgets. This has to be the last year in which we have a Budget Bill for a single year. It reflects a lack of investment in our citizens. Northern Ireland is the only devolved region that has seen funding below relative need, as evidenced by the Fiscal Council. It is significant that the UK Government have now conceded that key principle. Indeed, the proposed 124% needs-based adjustment operates more as a fiscal ceiling than as a fiscal floor, slowly returning us to a point to which we should not have been allowed to fall in the first place. It is inconceivable that the UK Government would wilfully continue to underfund Northern Ireland on that basis. We are asking not for special treatment but for a fair funding settlement that is equitable with other parts of the UK. Fairer treatment will allow the Executive and the House to aim to meet the needs of citizens across my constituency of Strangford and across Northern Ireland. There are strong arguments that, accounting properly for justice needs and to deliver climate objectives, the fiscal floor should be at least 127%. Alliance has led the way in that regard, and it is welcome that the Fiscal Council acknowledged that argument in its most recent publication. I thank my colleague Eóin Tennyson MLA for his expertise and ongoing work in that area. With the Executive restored, we have a stronger collective position from which to negotiate. As I have said before in the House, we should not look to put a ceiling on our ambitions for Northern Ireland, but we need to draw a baseline to ensure that people here no longer receive less investment than their counterparts in the rest of the UK. I accept that the UK is in a challenging financial period because of the impact of austerity, Brexit and cuts to public spending, but I do not believe that Northern Ireland should pay the price for the Conservatives' inability to deliver a fair Budget. Through the work of the Committee for Communities, I see at first hand the level of deprivation that a lack of appropriate investment creates. I thank the many front-line workers and citizens who have spoken to me about how hard it is for those on the lowest income across Northern Ireland. Members will have read in pages 8 and 9 of schedule 1 to the Budget Bill the breadth of the Communities remit and how expenditure arises. All will be delighted to hear that I will not repeat that huge list, as published, but, for the record, the Department for Communities pays the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the Northern Ireland Library Authority, National Museums and Galleries Northern Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Sport NI, the Charity Commission, the Commissioner for Older People and many more. The Department also has expenditure and services including grants, loans, compensation, benefits such as special rules for terminal illness, discretionary support grants and loans, collection of debts, provision of youth and adult employment services and the various strategies that promote and protect socially excluded groups. It is a huge remit that requires a substantial level of investment to meet the needs of the Northern Ireland community.

While I am pleased to see that there has been an increase in the departmental expenditure limit of £15·5 million, there is a decrease in net resources for capital purposes of £10·5 million. Annually managed expenditure, otherwise known as "AME", has increased for net current purposes and net capital purposes, enabling, in this financial year, the payment of social security and other benefits, grants, loans, allowances and payments to people of working age, pensioners and people with disabilities and their carers, in accordance with the prevailing legislation and regulations. Put simply, it is money that comes across from Westminster, because Westminster sets the amounts. The non-budget expenditure, which is the amount of expenditure through the social fund that is used for discretionary and winter payments, has been increased by just under £69·5 million. In previous years, rather than waiting until the last part of the year, the Budget position was revised through in-year monitoring rounds from revised departmental spending plans. I can only guess how many Budget Bills I have spoken to in the House since I came here in 2016, but this year has been the first time that we have had no opportunity to look at the position, and, sadly, the Secretary of State has decided not to disclose the amounts. In keeping its head above water, the Department for Communities has not been able publish and progress its range of social strategies. They include the anti-poverty strategy, the disability strategy, the active ageing strategy, the gender equality strategy, the sexual orientation strategy and the inclusion and social change strategies that should now be available to assist the Minister of Finance and the Executive to underpin a Programme for Government. I therefore ask the Minister of Finance to confirm in her response whether the Budget for 2024-25 will be underpinned by a Programme for Government that seeks to improve social inclusion outcomes for many of our socially excluded groups and whether she will consider the recommendations in the Department for Communities' social inclusion strategies that have been developed by expert panels. I would appreciate the Minister's confirming whether she will include time in the process — time to enable Members and her Executive colleagues to identify priorities that will meet need — and whether, in future, she will seek to enable delivery through a multi-year Budget. Others have said, "This is very quick. This is terrible", but 65% of the Budget for next year has been laid down. That now gives us time for scrutiny of the future Budget. It is becoming more difficult to accept that the Assembly continues to prioritise health and education without meeting head-on the reforms that are needed to provide sustainable service delivery, all while our housing stock desperately needs to be maintained. We have not even started to look at how a programme to retrofit social homes will be carried out. The waiting list for homes grows longer, and children and families still live in poverty. All of that has a significant impact on health and education. We need appropriate time to plan a Programme for Government that will include the housing outcome, as previously promised. We need cross-departmental sharing of funds in order to deliver an effective programme of delivery for the next three years. This must be the last time that we debate a single-year Budget that limits our ambitions for Northern Ireland. I sincerely hope that the returned Executive will work together to deliver better for Northern Ireland.

1,928 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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