Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 18 February 2025.

MLA: Mr Matthew O'Toole
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 18 February 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Budget Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4806197

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. The Budget Bill lists the various areas in which the Executive are spending money, but it offers no prioritisation. A Budget Bill is simply a list of areas in which money is legally spent, but there is no opportunity for the public to know how much money is being spent on reducing waiting lists or how much money is being invested to help our waste water infrastructure recover. I could find the bit in the Budget Bill that mentions funding Northern Ireland Water, because that is in there. I could find the bit in the Budget Bill that mentions funding the health service, because that is all in there. There is, however, no clarity whatever in the Bill on how the Executive will go about prioritising the things that the public care about. That is not the Budget Bill's fault, as that is not what it is there to do. As I have said, the Budget Bill is there simply to authorise spending legally, but the public deserve more than that. They deserve more than our simply marking time, turning up and keeping the lights on and then expecting credit for it. Before I conclude my remarks, I will turn briefly to a couple of specific points on which the Minister touched. He mentioned the use of the so-called black box and on the sole authority of the Budget Act. It is true that those amounts have come down significantly. It is also true that legislation is promised in some areas, specifically a financial provisions Bill and a Fiscal Council Bill. I want to know when those bits of legislation will be introduced in the Assembly. The suggestion yesterday was that they are hideously complex legislation that will take ages to produce and that officials need more time. To be fair, officials had years in which to produce them when this place was down. A financial provisions Bill and a Fiscal Council Bill are not politically controversial. I am at a loss as to why officials and drafters could not have been drafting those Bills while Ministers were not in office. Executive parties were having meetings about a Programme for Government. Activity was going on, so I presume that those people were still at work. I want to understand when exactly we will have those Bills before us. I will touch on the question of scrutiny. Mr Gaston was right to point out a typographical error in the spring Supplementary Estimates document. It is our job to take seriously the scrutiny of such documents and, insofar as we are able to, to understand them. They are not that hideously complicated. One of my great frustrations is that individual Statutory Committees barely scrutinise the documents, because the truth is that they are in a better position than the Finance Committee to understand why money might have moved around in their Departments. Look at some of the changes. For example, when I read the information — I should have had it marked — about a significant adjustment to the Department of Health's capital budget for 2024-25, I find that I am not sure about it. I imagine that it might be connected to the children's hospital debacle, but I do not know, because I am not on the Committee for Health. It is the job of each Committee not simply to get the headlines but to scrutinise exactly what is happening in the relevant Department's finances. Our Finance Committee should provide strategic direction, and I hope that we will do more of that.
While the Budget Bill may not go to a Division, it will be hard for us to jump up and down in ecstatic support for a Bill that authorises spending in the absence of a clear, strategic plan to deal with the crisis in our public services and to get waiting lists down. It does not provide a clear plan for how the Executive will spend money to invest in our waste water infrastructure and rescue public services. Frankly, the public have waited long enough for a plan to see those services rescued and are beyond cynicism with the Executive and these institutions. They deserve better. They deserve a coherent multi-year Budget when one can be delivered. They deserve a strategic plan from the Executive. Therefore, while it is welcome that spending continues to be authorised — in the same way in which it is welcome that we are in the Chamber, the lights are on and we are all talking — it is not good enough and needs to get better. Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.
I thank the Member for giving way. Since she raised it, may I ask her a question out of curiosity? Has her Committee been scrutinising the Budget and the related lack of a plan for the Maze/Long Kesh Development Corporation? I was wondering whether she has heard anything more about that during the process.

829 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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