Debate contribution: Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Main Estimates 2024-25; and Supply Resolution for Excess Votes for 2016-17, 2018-19, 2020-21, 2021-22

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 1 July 2024.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

1 July 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Main Estimates 2024-25; and Supply Resolution for Excess Votes for 2016-17, 2018-19, 2020-21, 2021-22

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4499002

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank my colleague the Deputy Chair of the Finance Committee for speaking on behalf of the Committee. Given the procedural restrictions of "one Member, one speech", as it were, I felt that it was important that my responsibilities as leader of the Opposition and as Chair of the Finance Committee and the fact that this is a timed debate should mean that I should not give both speeches. I suggest that both roles be looked at by the Procedures Committee going forward. Today, we are looking at the Supply Estimates, and, tomorrow, we will debate the Second Stage of the Budget (No. 2) Bill. When we came back in February after the collapse of these institutions, as after previous collapses, we were encouraged to believe that there would be a more coherent, systematic and strategic Budget-making process. However, today, we stand up to debate the Estimates document, having just had a statement on June monitoring on 1 July, as I said, three days before a UK general election. In my view, that is in flagrant breach of pre-election guidance published by the Executive Office just a few short weeks ago. It is clearly not strategic, not planned or not forward-looking to have our debates on public finances happening at this point. As the Minister said, we are debating limits that are now, in a sense, out of date. We will not, as an Opposition, divide the House on today's Estimates, but we will use the opportunity of today's debate and tomorrow's debate on the Budget (No. 2) Bill to make some specific points around the lack of a strategic plan for the rescue and recovery of our public services and, indeed, the lack of a meaningful multi-year Budget. In the monitoring round that we have just heard about, the Minister made a succession of commitments. Some of those commitments, as she said, are made at risk. They are made at legal risk because the UK Treasury has not laid Main Estimates in the UK Parliament. That is because there is no UK Parliament until the general election on Thursday. So, it is important to acknowledge, first, that, rather than the monitoring round happening as routine business, it is happening in anything but a routine context. Not just is it in contravention, in my view, of the clear pre-election guidance that was issued by the Executive Office just over a month ago but, in addition to that, it is happening at a time when there is "demonstrable and real legal risk". Those are not my words but the words of the Minister's departmental officials. Indeed, she herself used the word "risk" in the oral statement that she has just given, where she has acknowledged that there is specific risk around the allocations because they are not based on a Main Estimates document that has been laid by the UK Treasury in Parliament. That is because, as I said, there is no Parliament. In addition, she said at different times in her oral statement that there is risk that the amount that is ultimately received in the monitoring round could be lower. That is not normal or routine. She said:

"I am content that that is an acceptable risk."

All those risks would, of course, be mitigated if we were to wait a few days and have clarity from a new UK Government. Of course, with regard to the additional payment — the welcome additional payment, of course — that has been made to education workers, the Minister said in her monitoring round statement:

"utilisation of the funding for that purpose will only occur if the Treasury does not agree to my request to reprofile funding from the financial package."

That does not sound to me like routine business, given that there is no Parliament and that Treasury Ministers are operating in a shadow context. I would not call that normal or routine. I wanted to use my remarks to highlight the unusual nature of the monitoring round that we have just had, which is connected, because, as we hear in the Finance Committee, all Budget processes are connected to one another. The monitoring round is making allocations that are not reflected in the Estimates document that we are technically debating or the resolution that we are being asked to vote on. Nevertheless, they are welcome allocations. I will not go through them all. The Minister did that in some detail, both in the Chamber and with her colleagues the First Minister and deputy First Minister in front of the cameras outside. Of course, I would add in parenthesis that it is relatively unusual to have a monitoring round statement accompanied by a press conference with the First Minister and deputy First Minister in the Great Hall at Stormont. I am not aware of that happening on too many occasions. That also underscores the fact that there is nothing normal or routine about doing a monitoring round in this way: at legal risk, three days before a UK general election. I think that I have made my point in that regard, but I will keep making that point. I will make those points in correspondence with the head of the Civil Service. I will talk about the specific Estimates that we are debating. It is important to acknowledge that, when we returned in February, we were in very unusual circumstances. Stormont had been collapsed for the previous two years. Before that, we had two years of a pandemic. Before that, we had three years of collapse. I hope that the new-found commitment to stability from the two leading parties in the Executive will continue, but, in order to deliver on the commitments that the Executive parties have made on rescuing public services, we will need to see not just a monitoring round a few days before an election but a properly thought-through multi-year Budget that is aligned to a Programme for Government. That is not too much to ask. The people of the North have been promised a Government for all. They have been promised leadership and a plan to deliver the rescue of public services, which are in a state of collapse, in many cases. They have not got that yet. They have had a series of disconnected allocations, many of which are, in and of themselves, welcome, but they do not, in any way, represent a strategic plan to rescue and recover public services. That will come only when we have a Programme for Government that is aligned to a multi-year Budget. As and when a new UK Government are elected later this week, my party will call for an improved financial settlement, as, no doubt, will others, whether they do or do not take their seats at Westminster. In that regard, I will join the Finance Minister and other parties in the Chamber to get the best possible financial settlement for Northern Ireland. We will also call for a multi-year comprehensive spending round, which will allow the Minister and others in the Northern Ireland Executive to deliver properly thought-through, serious, strategic multi-year Budgets that are allied to an outcomes-based Programme for Government. That is what we, as the official Opposition, will call and press for, because, so far, since we returned in February, we have had disjointed allocations — sometimes, made at the last minute, as with today's announcement — and a series of legally meaningless motions brought to the Assembly by Executive parties. By all means, do a last-minute monitoring round in breach, in my view, of the pre-election guidance. Get the cameras into the Great Hall and tell people about the money that you are allocating just days before an election, but be honest with them that you have not yet delivered a proper plan to recover public services.

We, as the official Opposition, will continue to be constructive and robust in calling for that plan. We have not seen it yet — it has not been published today — but I hope that, at some point in the months to come, the people of Northern Ireland will have a proper plan.

1,360 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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