Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 1 July 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

1 July 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5061229

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Not specifically, because, under clause 4(2), in preparing a fiscal sustainability report, the Fiscal Council must consider:

"(a) public revenue, (b) public borrowing and accumulated debt, (c) expenditure, and (d) such other matters as the Council considers appropriate."

It does not specifically say "economic", meaning measured by GDP, GVA or whatever. I am talking about considering economic performance rather than fiscal performance. Part of what we need to do in our policymaking here is to have a greater connection between fiscal performance and broader Budget decision-making and economic performance. Incorporating that into the Fiscal Council's work may be a way in which to achieve that.

It will also be important for the Committee, as we scrutinise the Bill, to understand whether the council's reporting, in effect, to the Department rather than directly to the Assembly, as, for example, with the NI Audit Office, is precisely the right way to go. There are multiple examples to draw on. The Congressional Budget Office in the United States reports to Congress: it is, primarily, a congressional reporting body, but it does the same basic job as the Fiscal Council. By the way, I am not suggesting that the council operate on the same scale as the Congressional Budget Office, but that is an example of how that line into the legislature works. The other example is the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is independent but reports to and has its budget set by the UK Treasury. A legitimate question for us to understand and, at least, test is whether even more independence should be baked into the Fiscal Council's status and whether its budget should be set, for example, by the Assembly via the Audit Committee, as is the case with the NI Audit Office and a couple of other scrutiny watchdogs. Those are the kinds of things that we will look at. In broad terms, the Fiscal Council Bill is a positive development. The Committee will have the opportunity to go through it in great detail. I will make one broad point, however, which is that we have suffered and continue to suffer in this place from a crisis in accountability. I talk about that in a party political context all the time in the Chamber, and I obviously rub people up the wrong way about it. That is fine, because that is my job: I rub people up the wrong way. We are all politicians. I have a job to do, and I am pretty unabashed about that. I also acknowledge, however, that the structures of our politics have not necessitated people taking responsibility. We are all politicians who respond to the incentives that are there. We need to change the incentives. Part of changing the incentives is changing the way in which our politics works so that there is proper accountability and an independent watchdog that will set out the facts for Ministers, officials, legislators, the public, the media and all other interested parties. That, I hope, will create more of a focus on, bluntly, actual delivery, rather than, candidly, some of the sham fights and nonsense that pass for politics in this place. The crisis in accountability should concern us all. I worry that the public, whether they are unionist, nationalist or "Don't give two hoots", are genuinely losing complete faith in our political institutions and their ability to deliver. That, honestly, is not a party political point; it is about us as an institution. I hope that our work as the official Opposition is about changing some of that, but the Fiscal Council, at an institutional level, could and should be a real step forward towards proper accountability in financial decision-making and Budget setting. It has already done some of that over the past four or five years, and putting it on a statutory footing will aid that work. The Finance Committee will ask specific and detailed questions and will carry out a full Committee Stage. Work has been done previously, but we need to make sure that it is done properly. It is about getting the Fiscal Council's independence right, understanding exactly its responsibilities and what the Budget assessment and fiscal sustainability reports will look like and understanding how, if additional powers are to be conferred in future, the Department proposes to do that. It is about understanding whether all the OECD's recommendations on independent fiscal bodies are being followed and understanding the Fiscal Council's accountability to the Assembly as well as to the Executive. All of those are really important questions, and we want to get to the bottom of them. The Bill's passage at Second Stage will be a genuine step forward. I hope that we can get the Bill through the Finance Committee speedily but rigorously, come back to the Assembly to debate any amendments and get it on the statute book in the best possible shape.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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