Debate contribution: Tackling the Financial and Societal Impacts of Division

Debate contribution by Ms Diane Forsythe on 25 March 2025.

MLA

Ms Diane Forsythe

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

25 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Tackling the Financial and Societal Impacts of Division

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4866492

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome the opportunity, in advance of tomorrow's statement, to discuss the pressures on our finances in Northern Ireland. The DUP supports a shared future. We are committed to investing in and transforming our public services and ensuring that they are accessible by everyone in Northern Ireland. Moreover, we have a manifesto commitment to working together with the other parties to ensure that resources are not wasted, particularly in the current challenging financial climate. However, to infer that the costs of division are the main if not the only cause of higher public spending in Northern Ireland is not only wrong but a huge distraction from areas where tangible savings could be made in the short to medium term. Our amendment seeks to widen that point and add value. The authors of the motion have put the annual cost of division at £833 million. That figure was pulled from the Ulster University 2016 report, yet what is not mentioned is the fact that even those who published the report accepted that the headline figure, which actually ranged between £400 million and £800 million, took account of a range of factors that led to the additional cost of delivering public services here compared with Great Britain, not just the cost of division. For example, compared with England, Northern Ireland spends 25% more on inpatient care and 33% more on long-stay patients: is that the product of division? The authors of the 2016 report also said that it would be wrong to suggest that the headline figure of £883 million represented achievable savings, so there is a need for honesty at the heart of the debate. The Alliance Party has been keen to lament the cost of policing parades, bonfires or protests, notwithstanding the fact that only a few per cent of parades in Northern Ireland are deemed to be contentious. However, some of Alliance's policies would drive up those costs rather than remove them. For example, there have been calls for the PSNI to intervene routinely to prevent every act of expression in the public space that might be deemed to be offensive, despite the implications that that would have for public order and operational policing in other areas. Furthermore, there is a central contradiction in the argument that Alliance has put forward today. On one hand, it says that it wants to see the additional money spent on police and justice in Northern Ireland diverted to other critical public services; on the other hand, it has rejected out of hand the prospect of a group transition process for the paramilitaries who are a key factor in creating those additional costs in the first place. Does the Justice Minister want to see less money going towards fighting terrorism and paramilitarism in Northern Ireland without a viable alternative to tackle the harm that those groups cause? The DUP does not consider additional spending on tackling terrorism and paramilitarism and providing danger money for officers and staff as expendable, yet the Alliance Party's motion frames that as a waste. How, exactly, does the Justice Minister propose to reduce additional policing and justice costs? Is it the case that all that the Alliance Party is offering is warm words and aspiration without a plan? The motion focuses on the cost of division, but there is no reference to the causes or any mention of the communities affected, which stand to be detrimentally impacted if additional spending on policing and justice is stopped or local amenities deemed by Alliance to represent duplication are closed on a whim. Community engagement is central to applying a bottom-up approach to a shared and inclusive future. Without community buy-in, removing the causes and costs of division simply is not feasible. The DUP believes that we should focus on progress to date and on what we can do to build on the solid foundation that we already have, whether that be revamping the Urban Villages and Building Successful Communities schemes or continuing to invest in the Communities in Transition programme, helping many communities to move on from the presence of paramilitarism. In light of the motion, the Justice Minister needs to clarify whether she agrees. Promoting economic development and equality of opportunity for all must be the driving force behind removing the costs of division. A Northern Ireland where our young people want to live, work and raise a family irrespective of their background — a truly shared future — will be one in which every community and person in Northern Ireland is better connected and better equipped to succeed. Interestingly, the motion refers to using funding otherwise caught up in addressing division for "improving education provision". Previous debates and past actions by the motion's authors suggest that they wish only one sector of our education system, the integrated sector, to receive the dividends. That is a cause for more division, not a panacea for it. Notably, the independent review of education and previous studies in Scotland have highlighted the fact that the existence of separate school sectors does not necessarily lead to additional costs and that, where savings can be made, they should not be exaggerated.

I thank both Members for their intervention. Diane Dodds put on the record well the detail of the 2016 report and some of the issues around the citation of it. Our amendment recognises that there are many inefficiencies across Departments and savings that could be achieved to relieve pressures on public services and increase the scale and pace of the reform and transformation agenda. That includes a range of things, including public procurement, through which, each year, 5,000 contracts are awarded, worth between £2 billion and £4 billion. That spending is recurring with no overarching strategy in place, and it needs to be managed better, with the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), on which I sit, questioning its cost-effectiveness. There are also capital projects with reported overspends of £2·5 billion between 2019 and 2023 and rising, including the new maternity hospital at the Royal Victoria Hospital. More focus is needed on ensuring that our major capital projects are delivered on time and within budget. Unpaid and written-off rates are also an issue. Uncollected revenue of £65 million in rates arrears has been written off by officials in the past five years and over £100 million in arrears. We are not seeing the maximisation of our revenue stream from collecting those. Benefit fraud costs the taxpayer in Northern Ireland £163 million a year. That needs to be reduced, and I am grateful that the Communities Minister, Gordon Lyons, is taking action on it. Agency staff is another issue. The cost to our health service alone was £179 million in 2023-24. In the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS), which has an agency framework, we have seen a rise of £127 million to a total cost of £552 million as of 13 January this year. When it comes to arm's-length bodies (ALBs) and quangos, 120 bodies, with their administration and governance costs, deliver public services in Northern Ireland. There are huge opportunities for efficiency in Northern Ireland, and we want to see them all investigated — not a selected few. We do not feel that it is appropriate to dictate how the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council conducts its work of independently assessing public spending in Northern Ireland. It would be interesting to learn whether Alliance engaged with the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council before including the proposed statutory duty in today's motion. Our amendment supports placing the Fiscal Council on a statutory footing, as was previously committed to, not introducing specific duties on it. Our amendment addresses all efficiencies and savings that could be achieved across Departments to relieve pressure on public services and increase the scale and pace of the reform and transformation agenda in Northern Ireland. I commend the amendment to the House.

1,319 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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