Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Ms Sian Mulholland on 18 February 2025.

MLA: Ms Sian Mulholland
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 18 February 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Budget Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4806476

Text

First, I welcome the Minister to his new role. I am sure that he is delighted that I will not be haranguing him about landslides any more. I wish him well in his new role. As I am a member of the Communities Committee, I will focus my remarks on the Department for Communities, and that will be the crux of my contribution. As a former youth worker and a strong advocate of social justice and inclusion, I have seen at first hand how much a Budget matters, not just in economic terms but to those whom I represent. A Budget determines whether families have a home and whether they can heat that home; whether communities are safe; whether people have somewhere to turn to in crisis, such as ill health or bereavement; and whether we can support people back into work. In the main, the spring Supplementary Estimates and the Budget Bill are backward-looking, reflecting changes that take place between the Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates through in-year monitoring rounds, so it is crucial that we take stock of the financial trajectory of the Department for Communities over the past year. The Department plays a vital role in supporting some of our most vulnerable from providing housing and welfare support to tackling social exclusion, as well as supporting the arts, culture and sport sectors. At the outset of the financial year, the Department faced significant pressures. The resource bids outstripped available funding threefold, and similar constraints were evident in the capital allocations. Evidently, the challenge for the Department has been to manage limited resources effectively while striving to meet the growing demand for services. It is clear that one of the key priorities for the Department over the past year has been housing. At various monitoring rounds throughout the year, additional funding was secured for social housing new builds, reflecting the urgent need in our communities for more affordable homes. However, challenges remain in meeting that demand, particularly in homelessness interventions, where increasing pressures continue to strain resources. Additionally, there is the monthly cost of temporary accommodation. The cladding safety scheme also received targeted funding, highlighting the Department's commitment to ensuring safer living conditions for tenants. In the October monitoring round, £24 million was allocated for new-build social housing, but, as I said, demand continues to exceed supply. The Department has also had to navigate increased demand for welfare support. Discretionary support and homelessness prevention received allocations to help to mitigate the rising hardship, particularly in light of changes to welfare policy and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. The winter fuel support allocation of £17 million was a key intervention, demonstrating a focus, albeit rather unfocused, on protecting those at risk of fuel poverty. However, that was a reactive measure rather than a long-term strategic solution to the underlying issue of financial instability for vulnerable households, which, obviously, leads us back to the lack of an anti-poverty strategy. Yesterday, we heard that £12 million is being used to mitigate welfare payments for those moving to universal credit from legacy benefits. It is noted that the Minister intends to put welfare mitigations on a statutory footing, but we need to stop relying on the sole authority of the Budget Bill to fill the gap where legislation is not forthcoming. We expect to see that welfare legislation in the next six weeks, so we should not be in the position next year of looking at £12 million coming out on the sole authority of the Budget Bill. Beyond welfare and housing, the Department secured funding to further support the arts and cultural initiatives, with a £500,000 allocation to protect those vital sectors. However, some, including me, would argue that that is not nearly enough to sustain and nurture a thriving sector that contributes so much for so little. The Supporting People programme, which assists those with additional housing needs, also received funding in that monitoring round, but ongoing demand highlights the challenge of ensuring that there is consistent and sustainable support for those who rely on those services. It is not good enough that, in some cases, those working in that sector live on a month-to-month contract.
We need to look at how we can make that a more stable feature within an ongoing budget. Those engaging with the most vulnerable in society need stability and dignity in their work.
Throughout the financial year, the Department for Communities has said that it has had to adapt to shifting financial circumstances by making difficult decisions. The funding trajectory of the Department has evolved through the successive monitoring rounds. In the June monitoring round, £10 million was allocated to homelessness interventions and discretionary support, and, in the October monitoring round, £500,000 was allocated to the arts sector, £24 million for social housing new builds and £17 million for winter fuel support. In the January monitoring round, £4·5 million was allocated for new-build social housing and there was continued support for Supporting People. In the February adjustments, £1·4 million was allocated for critical emergency financial assistance for those affected by storm Éowyn. While the Department has outlined that it has made progress on its priorities, it is clear that funding constraints have limited its ability to deliver on all fronts. The reliance on the in-year monitoring rounds to address funding shortfalls has been a recurring challenge. That has enabled a reactive approach, which undermines the long-term financial planning that we need to see in a Department that deals with such a huge number of critical services. The recent Excess Vote also notes the breaches in capital limits, notably due to the unanticipated increases in universal credit advances. That demonstrates the difficulty in using financial foresight. It also demonstrates that, as we have raised in the Assembly in the past couple of weeks, the more people there are who have to move on to universal credit, the more need there is for us to mitigate the five-week wait with something much more effective than advance loans so that, hopefully, we do not see that breach in the capital limits next year. The 2024-25 Budget was hugely challenging at the outset. We came into it after a prolonged period of austerity and stop-start government, with resource bids outstripping the funding available for allocation by 3:1 at times and similar pressures on our capital budgets. Agreeing that 2024-25 Budget was the first step in offering stability, but so much more needs to be done. The interim financial framework, which was agreed in May 2024, provided an additional £431 million of funding for public services, but it needs to be further progressed to a more permanent framework that properly reflects our relative needs. There are wider structural issues due to the cycle of crisis and collapse that we cannot ignore. The 2024-25 Budget was the tenth single-year Budget in a row, as many others in the Chamber have mentioned. We cannot have financial sustainability without political sustainability. That is why we have consistently and persistently advocated for reform. In conclusion, while the Department for Communities has worked within difficult financial constraints to support individuals and families, the current financial framework is unsustainable. We need commitment to a multi-year Budget approach that allows for long-term planning. Only then can we ensure that the Department fulfils its mandate to improve the lives of those who depend on it most.

1,228 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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