Debate contribution: Budget (No. 2) Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 2 July 2024.

MLA

Mr Doug Beattie MC

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

2 July 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget (No. 2) Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4529405

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I give my contribution from the Back Bench only because it is more comfortable back here and for no other reason, in case anybody thinks otherwise. It has been a good debate. Members have expressed their opinions and concerns, and they have done it well. I noticed that they have pointed out all the problems that we have in regard to the Budget, and then they all said that they would vote for it.

The Ulster Unionist Party will not support the Budget, however, because it is a below-needs Budget that was produced without a strategic plan or a needs-based assessment. There was no scrutiny and no public consultation. That argument was well set out by the leader of the Opposition, but, without a doubt, the Budget is below need for the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Department for Infrastructure and the Department for Communities.

I will, if you can give me just a moment. It is certainly below need for the Department of Health, which needs about a 6% increase each year just to stand still, and it is certainly not getting that. The Budget will create catastrophic cuts for the health service, and the Executive were told that it would before they took a vote on 25 April. They were told not by the Health Minister but by the health providers that it would cause catastrophic cuts to healthcare. The Executive either knew that and ignored it or knew it and did not care, but, after less than two hours of debate on 25 April, they voted in favour of a below-needs Budget. I am happy to give way.

Thank you. Yes, I am perfectly aware of what the debate is about. For me, standing here now, it is about the future of our health service. Members talk about what is said to them on the doors, and I will not go much further, but, when I go to the doors, people are interested in what is happening with the health service, and facets of it are not good. Let us be clear: if you support the Budget, you accept the Budget, and we cannot accept a below-needs Budget that will have catastrophic effects. Why would we? We fully accept that, in working with any Executive, budgets need to be pooled and shared; I absolutely accept that. A baseline is needed for that, however, and, at this moment, the baseline that we have for the budget for our health service is pretty catastrophic. Again, it is health professionals who have said that, not us. The cry, as always, to us is, "If we're going to give the Department of Health more money, where are we going to take that money from? From which Department are the cuts going to come?". I will answer that in two ways, if I can. First, no needs-based assessment has been done, and we have no Programme for Government, so I cannot say from where the money will come. Nobody can say where the money will come from, because no strategic outcomes have been laid out, because we have no Programme for Government. People can giggle all that they want. The Executive are making it up, because there has been no scrutiny. They are literally making it up. Secondly, I am asked, "Which Department will give up more money?". I never asked any Department to give up money; I asked Executive Ministers to stand together and say, "This Budget isn't good enough". I asked them to go back to the Government in Westminster and tell them that it is not good enough. That is what I asked for: that Executive Ministers say to the Government, "This is not workable", and then go back to them before we agreed the Budget. There was supposed to be a meeting of the Executive on 18 April to discuss the Budget to make sure that everyone knew what was going on. That meeting was cancelled, so our Minister found out about the Budget only days before the meeting on 25 April. When that debate, which lasted for less than two hours, was being held at the Executive on 25 April, I rang party leaders and said to them, "Please do not vote on the Budget. Can we delay it for a week just so that we can discuss it further?". They said no, and, on the Executive, they voted for the Budget, while we voted against it. An awful lot of the time, I hear Sinn Féin say, "Tory austerity. We're in this mess because of Tory austerity", and then it votes in favour of a Tory Budget. Let us call it an "austerity Budget": Sinn Féin voted in favour of it. All that we said to the Executive was, "Don't. Let's go back as a collective and argue the case for more". That was what we asked for: nothing more. I will tell you what: we asked for a week in which to do that, and the Executive said no. What, do we really think, will happen here when we get a new Government?

Everybody thinks that that Government are going to thrust their hand into their pocket and pull out an awful lot of money and fire it towards our Executive and say, "There you go". Not a chance. Here is what they will do. They will look and say, "We called your bluff, we gave you this Budget, you made do. Well, you can make do again this year". That is what is going to happen. We will be made to make do again next year because we did not stand up to them. It is not just about talking about the allocation of the Budget. The allocation of the Budget is the allocation of the Budget. It is the quantum of the whole thing that has been given to us for the Minister to be able to divvy up, and to divvy up without any strategic outcomes. When we did this for this below-needs Budget and when we cut Health by £184 million or 2·3%, no more than two weeks later, the same three political parties decided to give themselves an increase of a quarter of a million pounds to run their own party structures. Of course, a quarter of a million pounds will not do an awful lot. That extra £100,000 that has gone to Sinn Féin to run its own party structures here will not go very far, that extra £85,000 that went to the DUP to run its own party structures here will not go very far, and neither will the £45,000 that has gone to the Alliance Party. Of course, I accept that it is not a huge amount of money, but if you are a charity and you rely on micro funding, it is a huge amount of money. Sometimes, you do have to stand and say, "I do not agree". That is what I am doing. I am standing and I am saying, "I do not agree". There is not a single person in this room, I think, who does not want to do the best that they possibly can with the Budget that has been allocated. I simply do not agree with it.

Yes.

Thank you for the intervention. With all due respect, that really is a strange old intervention. I am not asking for anything to be collapsed. I am expressing a disagreement with the Budget, but I will say this. You talk to me about your tactics with the Irish Sea border. Did they work? Is the Irish Sea border still there or has it gone?

I will give way.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I guess that you are right. I was just answering the point. I am not trying to bring this down in any shape or form. We are taking a stand on a Budget that we do not think is right. We think that it is below need, we think that it handicaps our health service and we think that it will create catastrophic cuts. We will not implement them. That is the point that I am making. If people want to drag me into a different debate, I am happy enough to be dragged into a different debate, but I accept your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will finish, and I was close to finishing anyway. I thought that all the contributions were good — I think that everyone made their points very well — but the Ulster Unionist Party cannot and will not support this Budget, now or later on.

1,435 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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