Debate contribution: Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Main Estimates 2025-26

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 3 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

3 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Main Estimates 2025-26

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4985855

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Members lament — I know that I do — having to talk in a Budget debate again. It is just a constant cycle. I will address the issues that I have found in the Northern Ireland Main Estimates 2025-26. Whilst there have been improvements in linking the Main Estimates with the Programme for Government and the legislative programme, you can still see massive gaps. You can see where improvements have been made, but we are nowhere near there yet, and, because we are not there yet, it is causing violence to the Programme for Government and the Budget. I will not have time to go through everything that I have studied in what is a substantial document, so I will pick out some of the issues. The leader of the Opposition was right to mention the Communities Minister's utterances yesterday about his budget allocation. I will start with housing. Housing is a massive issue. It is one of the issues in the Programme for Government that need to be funded through the Budget. What I got from the Communities Minister yesterday was hope — hope that he can manage what he has, hope that he can get more money through monitoring rounds and hope that he can meet his target, as he did last year. That is exactly what we need to hear from Ministers. We need Ministers to look at their budget, see the restraints and sense where they can make differences. That is why we have locally accountable Ministers. None of us ever has enough money. That goes for households, daily living and Departments. We need Ministers to knuckle down and drill down into efficiencies in their Departments. It is not just about making efficiency savings but about looking at how we can do things better and better help our people. Sometimes when we hear laments, sad stories and sob stories here about not having enough money, it really gets me down, because that is not what we want to hear from politicians. We want to see and feel hope. One of the issues that I will raise is in the DAERA Main Estimates. The introduction states:

"This Estimate provides the vision of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, for 'delivering a net zero nature positive future, supporting sustainable agriculture and thriving rural communities.'"

It is clear that all that the Alliance Minister cares about is net zero. It does not matter how much he will destroy in our farming industry and our rural communities to meet targets that are unachievable and have been since they were set. What does that do? It increases poverty. He will do violence, if he pushes through his nutrients action programme, which, by the way, our party opposes and which, as far as I know through public utterances, Sinn Féin opposes. A majority in the House are opposed to the direction that the AERA Minister will impose and that he will need to fund through his budget. It is a farcical situation, because the Executive are not joined up, if the AERA Minister can impose that against the wishes of the rest of the Executive and the Assembly.

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Of course the environment is really important, but why is he throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Why has he not consulted the farming community? Why will he not work with the farming community? Why is he burying his head in the sand on NAP?

NAP is a disaster. I have read it, and it is an absolute disaster for the rural community, our farming industry, our exporters and the people who produce our food.

The current plans pose a serious threat to our farming sector and food production, risking livelihoods, putting more people into poverty, cutting livestock numbers, affecting food production and threatening Northern Ireland's ability to produce the food that we need and that we need to export. That spells disaster, yet the Minister is going to preside over the disastrous policy, which does violence to other PFG priorities such as "Grow a Globally Competitive and Sustainable Economy". On the one hand, a Department is driving forward on one goal in the Programme for Government; on the other, it will do violence to the other priorities in it. That is not sustainable. That is not effective government. That is not an efficient Executive. The Assembly will have to have a say on it. That is just one of the issues that I see that can become farcical because of this and the silo mentality of Departments. It is good that improvements have been made and that the Budget can sometimes align with the Programme for Government. However, what we have discovered is that Departments can also do violence to other priorities in the Programme for Government. Again, with the Department of Health, the legislative programme suggests that the Minister will introduce a public health Bill. It has not gone away, you know: it is still there and being consulted on. That will cause massive damage to public health. It will give dictatorial powers to one Minister in this place to lock people down and to ban sports. What will that do? It does violence to the "Cut Health Waiting Times" priority and to the "Ending Violence Against Women and Girls" priority, because we know that, during lockdown, such violence increased. It will also do violence to the priority on better support for children and young people. I could go through more in the Programme for Government that the public health Bill will damage. We are still waiting to see what the Minister of Health produces. Those are just some examples of how Departments in their silos and Ministers in their aims and objectives can do massive damage to this place that we call Northern Ireland. They can do great damage to the Executive and to the Assembly that tries to help and support them. It will do harm, not good, to our people, as the Executive did during the pandemic and the zombie Assembly did when it allowed that to happen. We need to make sure, as MLAs, that we scrutinise every move that is made, not just those by the Department of Finance or the Finance Minister. He has produced a Budget. Every Member here will decide whether it is good or bad. However, it really gets me down when Ministers say, "I do not have enough money to do what I need to do", yet they will do violence to other Departments and other aims and objectives in the Programme for Government through some of the aims and objectives that they pursue. That cannot stand.

1,114 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification