Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 19 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

19 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4223709

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I have already said that the process that we are asked to endorse today — the spending of so much public money without knowing where it will all go or for what purposes it will be used — is totally absurd. It smacks of the new Assembly continuing in the same vein as its predecessors. There is a question over MLAs, especially those outside the Executive, having their say on the Budget Bill and being able to properly scrutinise it. We have been unable to do so. That is not to mention the members of the public who are constantly told that decisions are made on their behalf. There is no inclusion for them. The Assembly has failed the first test of its scrutiny role by rushing the Bill through earlier and being likely to pass it by tomorrow. Over the years, we have heard a lot about the renewable heat incentive and the need to learn lessons about proper processes being put in place to ensure that public money is spent properly. Those calls have fallen on deaf ears. Too many times, I have heard in this stop-start Assembly, of which I have been a part, that accelerated passage is a special case or that there are extenuating circumstances, but legislation is being rushed through again today. Here we go again and again.

We are given mere hours to scrutinise it and are then asked to rush it through. It is a return to the way it always was at Stormont.

We know that a huge portion of the blame lies with the Tories and their cruel and unforgivable approach to funding public services in this place. The Tories have collectively gutted some £500 billion from public services since they came to power in 2010. That is half a trillion pounds of public money — a staggering figure — the loss of which has led directly to a spike in the number of people going to food banks, homelessness figures going through the roof and people in their millions struggling in poverty. The Tories' Budget and the consultations launched by Departments were essentially a hit wish list through decimated public services and working-class people. I and my party welcome the announcement from the First Minister that water charges will not come in as a secondary, separate charge. However, there have also been suggestions for higher tuition fees, possibly limited travel for over-65s, and the reintroduction of prescription charges. They all hang over ordinary people like the sword of Damocles. I say clearly that, if the Executive proceed with any of those plans, people need to be ready to take to the streets to protest and campaign to resist such cruel measures. The DUP enabled the Tories all along by collapsing Stormont and by being attached at the hip for so many years. Now that Sinn Féin is in the Government, with ministerial portfolios, it should not do the Tories' bidding. The Tories have the gall to talk about financial management and budgets here while the total level of debt in Britain is some £2·5 trillion. They have a mountain of debt but the cheek to lecture us. When selling the Bill, the Minister and her colleagues talked about the money that is set aside for public-sector workers. The first thing to be said is that, if there is an increase, whatever the detail is, it will have been won by the public-sector workers who went on strike last month in unprecedented numbers — 170,000 of them. People were told for too long about money trees not existing, but we knew that it was a spoof and a lie, and the workers did not buy it. They changed the narrative and shifted the terms of the debate. Anything extra that has been obtained is down to their fight, their strikes and their struggle, not to the clever words of politicians behind closed doors. The Finance Minister stated in correspondence to the Finance Committee:

"It is regrettable that the Executive was not in a position to fund the full c£700 million of estimated pay costs identified by departments."

The question is this: who will lose out? Unite the union has already written to the Minister to clarify whether the £688 million pay package makes any provision for a pay and grading review sought by striking education workers that is six years overdue. The union has warned that if there is not enough money or not enough on offer, the workers will take strike action. That is a certainty, and I will back them if they take that action. As we have heard, they are some of the lowest-paid workers, who deliver essential work in difficult and challenging circumstances, especially with people who have complex needs. Junior doctors are also appalled by the pay offer that they have received. Their wages have fallen by 30% over the past 15 years, a significant divergence of pay, but the DUP has said nothing about it. The BMA left its meeting with the Department feeling extremely disappointed and disheartened; it has been offered a below-inflation pay deal that will do nothing to recruit more doctors and stop people leaving these shores to seek and obtain greater pay. The Budget Bill fastens in those pay cuts. That alone should be a reason to vote it down. I thank our junior doctors for all their hard work over the years. If they are out on picket lines, I will stand with them, but will it not be absurd if Executive parties pass the Bill and then join the picket lines when people strike early next month? I hope that they do not. The Budget contains some money to support asylum seekers and refugees, but it appears to be completely inadequate. Huge challenges are faced by our asylum seeker and refugee communities, and the Executive need to stand up and fight for them. The Executive need to challenge the rotten Tory hostile environment policies, not implement them. The Home Office needs to cough up money to ensure that asylum seekers are not evicted from their homes when they achieve settled status. I am long enough in the tooth to know that that will not happen without pressure from anti-racism groups, migrant communities and housing campaigners. It is not enough for the Executive to leave the Tories to it or to oversee their dirty work.

If all that the Executive do is implement Tory policy, it begs this question: what exactly are the Executive good for? Budget cuts are budget cuts, and it makes little odds whether they come directly from the Tories or from their enablers here. I finish by inviting the Opposition to vote against the Budget Bill and join the socialist opposition and people who stand against the Budget for the reasons that I have stated.

1,140 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:20 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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