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

Debate contribution by Ms Diane Forsythe on 9 June 2025.

MLA

Ms Diane Forsythe

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

9 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget (No. 2) Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4997154

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are all well versed in the Budget circumstances here. We know that we face pressures in delivering public services and that Northern Ireland has long been underfunded. The DUP leader, Gavin Robinson MP, has led the campaign for an improved funding package for Northern Ireland for some time, and we remain committed to fighting for that. I welcome the Finance Minister's review of our funding and his progressing discussions with Treasury on our increased funding need. I hope to see that reflected in the comprehensive spending review this week. I look forward to the spending review announcement, which, as has been noted, is expected to set out resource spending for the next three years and capital spending for the next four years. That will transform our ability to plan for the better use of public money, to improve delivery of public services, to realise efficiencies, to make strategies that are underpinned by longer-term financing and to make huge strides in securing the status and existence of our voluntary and community sector, which delivers critical public services in Northern Ireland. Our annual Budgets make the running of public services and our economy challenging, especially where we roll forward on Votes on Account and set the Budget Bill when we are already three months into the financial year and in the process of June monitoring rounds. The Budget (No. 2) Bill that we are dealing with has been brought before us as at a time when we face extreme financial pressures and does the best that it can under the circumstances. Across Departments, Ministers have bid significantly more than has been allocated to them in the Budget, leaving disappointment with allocations across the board. The Ministers, the Executive and the Assembly have a responsibility to ensure that Departments keep running and delivering essential public services to the best of their ability. To do that, they need the Budget (No. 2) Bill to be approved. This year, although we are in the position of the Budget's having been brought forward following the publication of an agreed Programme for Government, the available Budget is putting constraints on how much can be delivered. I am disappointed that the leader of the Opposition is not in the Chamber. He is very critical of the Communities Minister's allocations to housing, but we can be assured that, were more money available to the Communities Minister, he would deliver more housing. Budgets are constrained, however. Our Ministers are making the best of their allocations, and there remains ambition and commitment that any more money that becomes available will be used to deliver for us in Northern Ireland. We face the spending review against a backdrop of uncertainty, following the Labour Government's unpredictable and disappointing actions of recent months, such as taking the winter fuel payment from our pensioners; the attacks on family farms; and the hit to small businesses that has been caused by the move to increase employers' National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage, which came at once and at short notice. Such uncertainty is not good for financial planning. Our priority is to approve an operational Budget in Northern Ireland to keep our public services operating and delivering the best for us. As we move on the Budget, it is important that we ensure that we achieve the best value for money in our public spending. We need to see real transformation of our public services and public money being spent wisely. I welcome last week's publication of the new public procurement policy statement. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I am committed to ensuring that the £2 billion of goods and services that are procured each year are delivered by spending public money in the most transparent and efficient way. Another important point that came to the Public Accounts Committee was about the management of capital projects. Given that it can be cited that we face a £3 billion overspend on key projects, it is imperative that things are done differently. Last week, my colleague Diane Dodds rightly highlighted that the hundreds of millions of pounds of overspend on capital projects in Health could have paid for the mother-and-baby unit that we all want to see delivered, and for many more much-needed capital projects, including enhancements to Daisy Hill Hospital and Craigavon Area Hospital in my Southern Trust area. We need to work together to ensure that the money that we receive is spent wisely. The financial package that we received required that a balanced Budget be delivered. Not a lot has been said about the fact that that has been achieved in 2024-25 — although the year is not quite closed off — but I wish to acknowledge that and to commend all the officials in the Department of Finance and across the Civil Service for their continued work in monitoring, reporting on and managing the Budget, month in, month out.

I also extend thanks to the Finance Minister for his officials' continued engagement with the Finance Committee. I genuinely believe that, working together and sharing that work with other Committees, we have been able to improve some processes to enhance Budget scrutiny across the board. I look forward to continuing to work closely with them. However, I note that, in 2024-25, we had huge in-year allocations, the like of which we do not expect to see repeated in 2025-26, so we approach the year with caution. The 2025-26 Budget will be challenging, but the DUP supports the progression of the Budget (No. 2) Bill today.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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