Debate contribution: Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Spring Supplementary Estimates 2024-25

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 17 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Eóin Tennyson

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

17 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Spring Supplementary Estimates 2024-25

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4802994

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I support the Supply resolutions for the spring Supplementary Estimates, the Vote on Account and the Excess Vote. I intend to speak relatively briefly, as we will have an opportunity to rehearse many of these issues and themes again during the passage of the Budget Bill. At the outset, I welcome the return to the semblance of some normality when it comes to the Budget process in the Assembly. Last year, we debated a Budget Bill in advance of the spring Supplementary Estimates, while, this year, we are able to return to the usual 45% figure in relation to the Vote on Account. It goes without saying that the 2024-25 financial year has been yet another incredibly challenging one, with demands from Departments far outweighing the resources available at every stage of the process. Prolonged austerity, the damage from Brexit and an increasing cost of living, with cumulative inflation pushing close to 19% in the past three years, have placed enormous pressure on household budgets and on the Executive's finances. In the face of those challenges, most parties in the Chamber — I emphasise "most" — have been working together constructively in a genuine attempt to support people and services where it matters most. Those pressures have been felt right across the UK. In September, the Scottish Government announced £500 million in emergency saving measures in order to balance their Budget mid-year. Of course, in Northern Ireland, the pain has been compounded further by a funding formula that has not kept pace with need and by a cycle of stop-start government that has come at a cost through, in the past, depriving us of key opportunities to transform our broken public services. Since the Executive have returned, however, an additional £1·3 billion has been allocated to Health and Social Care when compared with the figure in the previous Budget from the Secretary of State in 2023-24. Some £45 million has been allocated to offset the worst of welfare reform, including the bedroom tax, while £17 million has been allocated to assist with mitigating Labour's decision to end the winter fuel payment. Meanwhile, the interim fiscal framework has generated an additional £431 million of investment for public services. It is no secret that the UK Government hold the bulk of the fiscal levers and therefore exert the greatest influence over the Budget ultimately available to the Executive. When the new UK Government came into office, they laid bare the failures of the previous Administration, rightly highlighting the £22 billion funding gap that they had inherited and departmental spending plans that never fully reflected the impact of inflation and, as a consequence, were at least £15 billion lower in real terms when compared with 2021 spending review levels. All that has had direct implications for our ability to spend and invest here.

When we debated the Main Estimates last year, there were calls from some in the Chamber for additional spend in a number of areas. It was notable, however, that Members were less forthcoming about identifying from where that additional investment would come. No one argues that the allocations throughout 2024-25 have been sufficient. The question for the Executive and the Assembly at every stage of the Budget cycle and during every monitoring round has not been whether the allocations are sufficient but rather whether they represent a fair attempt at distributing what are clearly insufficient resources. Alliance has consistently made the case, and will continue to make the case, to the UK Government for a fair funding settlement that properly reflects Northern Ireland's unique circumstances and relative need. Any permanent fiscal framework must reflect the impact of political dysfunction and historical underfunding on our public services, but, in making that case to the UK Government, we cannot simply ignore our responsibilities as an Executive and an Assembly to drive transformation. I am pleased that, this year, the Department of Justice has taken forward significant areas of work on speeding up justice and on access to justice reform. It must be said, however, that that same desire to deliver public service transformation has not been evident in some of our other large-spending Departments. The Department of Health's hospital reconfiguration plan lacked any concrete proposals for transformation. Similarly, the Department of Health has not demonstrated any desire to confront the cost of division. If we are to make the case for increased investment, we also have to provide assurances that the public money that we are spending is being spent wisely. There are myriad examples, as we look back on 2024-25, of where that has not been the case, be it the £600 million spent on social care without any proper procurement process or value-for-money checks having been done, the £250,000 spent on magnetic wallets or the capital funding allocations about which there has been insufficient openness and transparency. I agree with Mr O'Toole, who made this point. The role of the Fiscal Council is critical to bringing additional scrutiny to the Budget processes before us, so it is essential that, as we look towards next year's Budget cycle, those provisions be placed on a statutory footing. I will mention a number of points that have other Members have made. A number of Members have highlighted the fact that record levels of Barnett consequentials have flown through the process this year. Some Members have argued that we need to be more strategic about how we spend that money, but I argue that Barnett consequentials are the exact antithesis of strategic spending. It is far better that we have a clear indication through a multi-year spending review from Westminster of the money that will be available for investment. Indeed, many Barnett consequentials have arisen after 14 years of austerity and underinvestment. Those consequentials, far from allowing any ability for us to make meaningful long-term investment or, indeed, to prioritise transformation, have simply been swallowed up by in-year departmental pressures. If we are to see the changes in our public services and public finances that we aspire to, we must reform how we approach those issues. This Budget is the tenth single-year Budget in a row; next year will see the eleventh such Budget. After that, we will have an opportunity, finally, to return to multi-year budgeting. It is essential that that happen, that future Budgets be underpinned by a Programme for Government — this one is not — and that that stable Budget process be underpinned by stable political institutions so that, never again, can these processes be upended by political chaos and dysfunction. I will have much more to say on that in the debates on the Budget Bill that lie ahead.

1,110 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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