Debate contribution: Budget 2024-25

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 28 May 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

28 May 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget 2024-25

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4492614

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are being presented with a Budget today that, let us face it, is not going to cut it. It is not going to solve the problems that the public sector faces, and it is not going to deal with the challenges that our communities face. Speaking as our party's health spokesperson, we have seen for too long that waiting lists are getting longer and waiting times are getting longer. Every sector of our health service has attended the Health Committee and detailed how budget cuts are impacting on and resulting in poorer outcomes for people and a bleak future. We are seeing the collapse, in places, of our primary care sector, our community pharmacy sector and our NHS dental care. While it was always understood that there would be no silver bullet to resolve those matters overnight, the bottom line is that, when I look at the Budget, I feel that we could do better. For example, where is the money for transformation to allow the Health Department to keep some of the money that it spends and reinvest it in the Department? Where is the cross-departmental working? Health stretches beyond the Department of Health. One only has to look at the mental health challenges that face our young people, how they face them in schools on a daily basis and the impact that that has on their education and their future. That is just one example. What about our community and voluntary sector? One only has to look at the community and voluntary sector to see that the Budget will obliterate it. What will the cuts achieve in the community and voluntary sector? It can take the money that it is given through the Health Department and turn every pound into much more money through what it can attract from other funds and the voluntary nature of its work. It can make that money go much further. However, unfortunately, all that we will do with the Budget is copper-fasten the fact that we are driving a coach and horses through that work, removing the core funding from the sector. Sometimes, with Health, it feels that the only operation that the Executive manage to successfully deliver is that of cutting off their nose to spite their face. Our health trusts, for example, are being asked to make cuts like we have never seen before, with 400 fewer acute beds, 1,200 fewer staff, a million fewer hours of domiciliary care and 500 fewer care home beds.

What will our health trusts look like after the Budget?

We know that the Tory Government have slashed the Budgets that have been made available to successive Executives over the years, but let us not hide the fact that the decision-averse political parties that have dominated those Executives have refused to take decisions unless they simply meant spending more money. Everyone knows that that policy will not work in the long term, can work only in the short term and needs to be reversed. Otherwise, that type of fiscal mismanagement simply drains the public purse. The public purse is in a drought. There is nothing left in it, yet the bills keep mounting higher. One can only hope that the decisions that are taken for another place on 4 July will see a different type of independence, because the independence that I want to see is from austerity. I want to see a change in policy that means that we will see investment in public services here and a recognition of the desperate state that we have been left in through the poor management of public funds by Executives. I truly believe that only a Labour Government will deliver that and that defeating the Tories will be paramount. Turning up in Westminster to boot them out will be a critical task. Finance Minister, others will have to do that for you, because your colleagues refuse to turn up to kick the Tories out. Over the last period, we have heard of fiscal floors, fiscal ceilings and fiscal promises, but, when I look at the landscape of the finances that are presented in this Budget, I fear that little will change. One of the saddest elements that will remain consistent is that Ministers will continue to work in silos — protect thy budget and rob everyone else's — if they hang around long enough to be able to do that. That is not the form of joined-up government that a responsible and mature democracy requires. The London Government are evidently not providing enough for the North's Budget. As ever, the Executive prove that they are incapable of managing those funds fairly and equitably. Once again, Ministers have displayed immature, childish and selfish approaches to budgets, refusing to work with others and merely trying to deliver their own work. A detailed Programme for Government would help to address that, but we are still waiting, because we have to remember this: "Let's not be in a hurry". Once again, we see a Budget that papers over the cracks rather than being a planned and strategic investment and dealing with the root causes of our problems. With this Budget, people will get sicker; poverty will not be challenged; inequalities in society will not be addressed; the school estate will continue to crumble; potholes will increase and get deeper; farmers will get little support; the housing crisis will continue; and many in the public sector will continue not to get a fair day's wage. With all that, the Executive still expect the House to support the Budget.

Absolutely. That is what will happen with the circular nature of the Budget unless we break that circle and make sure that we are not creating more problems as we try to solve them. Domiciliary care is an example of where, if we do not intervene, we will not fix problems and will put pressures elsewhere. It is not raining here. I am not getting soaked, but I can hear the distant rumble that things are going to get better, but not with this Budget.

1,013 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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