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 Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 1 July 2024.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist 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 4499460

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Members who have been here for a bit longer and have been scrutinising our finances for some time as part of the Finance Committee will look at the motions before us with interest. One of the most interesting things is that we are talking about the Northern Ireland Main Estimates and the Excess Votes from 2016-17 on. If there is anything to indicate how badly we have got things wrong since then, it should be that. We are being asked to approve Excess Votes from 2016-17 to 2022-23. There is no doubt that we will, because this is money spent and money gone. There will not be a Division on that. We need to understand, however, how we have got to the point at which we are now trying to ask Westminster to be allowed more opportunities for the devolution of fiscal powers, when this is the first time since 2016 that we are in a position to approve the Main Estimates. That is something that we all should be concerned about. The point that I now make is not a political one but a point of scrutiny, and other Members have alluded to it. The lack of information and the lack of a flow of reliable data will make it remarkably difficult for us as Members to provide appropriate scrutiny of any of the processes going forward. I am glad to see that the Minister is pushing ahead with the idea of putting the Fiscal Council on a proper statutory footing, but that has to be expedited, because we cannot afford to be in the situation again in which we wait seven to eight years to pass the Estimates. I will go on to talk about some other issues, but there is another thing that concerns me. I would never want to give a boost to my learned friend the Chair of the Finance Committee, who is also the leader of the Opposition, but there is something off about having the June monitoring round at this stage, when a delay of three to four days would not have made much difference. A further concern is that I have asked the First Minister and the deputy First Minister a direct question about a Programme for Government, which is essential for what we need to do and what we are trying to do. I asked why we could not bring a Programme for Government forward. The reason that I was given was that we are in purdah and that arrangements were being made that it should not happen. We are being asked to consider a Budget that is not based on need. If it were based on need, the health budget would not be in the position in which it is and we would not be as short of funding as we are. We are grateful for the additional £122 million, but we are still in a catastrophic situation. That point has been underlined by our health trusts and health professionals. We should look objectively at the need. We spent a lot of time at Hillsborough Castle, as we sat around the various tables, trying to make sure that the British Government realised that there was a definition of need and that improvements were required to the level of need that we have. We have talked about that, and we have seen the level of need increase to 124%; indeed, it may and probably will have to be higher than that. That is a needs-based approach. If we took the needs-based approach, how did we get into a situation where the Health Department has been cut? We have heard Alliance and everybody else say, "Oh no, it hasn't really been cut". Yes, it has. It has been cut by 2·3%, which is £187 million. We cannot deliver what we need to do with the funds that we have. We are in a catastrophic situation. The Minister might make some remarks at the end about how we get to a proper needs-based approach for budgeting. I do not know how we will do that without a Programme for Government. The one thing I remember is that all the main parties who sat round the table at Hillsborough Castle said that they were committed to making health the number-one priority; indeed, many of those parties said in their manifestos that Health needs an extra £1 billion. Now we are scrabbling for extra moneys. As the Minister said earlier today, the Health requirement far outstrips the moneys that are available. That talks to the need for proper prioritisation and the need to make sure that that happens. We are without a Programme for Government, and the June monitoring round is now happening in July, but there is another thing that raises my concern: the Minister is taking this at risk. I would also like the Minister to address why she has a degree of certainty that the Treasury, which will probably be under a new Government, will honour the various commitments.

That question should be raised with the permanent secretary or the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. There may, indeed, be a case for that. My concern is more fundamental than that, and it is that we are predicating the June monitoring round on moneys that have not been guaranteed. As I said, I would like the Minister to give the House some degree of surety that those funds will actually be there. We expect that there probably will be a new Government in place come Friday, and there are already indications that we are moving to an early Budget, maybe even in September. If that is the case, what are the plans going forward to make sure that we are able to continue with this process? We will need another monitoring round, and I am beginning to suspect that we will need another Budget Bill. We need to have some kind of assurance that we are top of this, but we cannot get that — I go back to my first point, which others have mentioned — unless we have proper data, proper governance and proper use and flow of information. If we cannot do our job effectively and scrutinise effectively, we cannot help you, Minister, and we definitely cannot help the Departments.

1,052 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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