Debate contribution: Health and Social Care Pay Awards 2025-26

Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on 23 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Robbie Butler

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

23 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Health and Social Care Pay Awards 2025-26

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5129762

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you. Mr Deputy Speaker. First, I declare an interest, because of Nurse Butler and Nurse Hancock, my wife and my daughter, as the debate will impact on them. Today, the Assembly faces a moment of truth. We have been here before, and I have to be absolutely clear that this is not just a debate about pounds and pence or about figures on a spreadsheet. It is also about people, about fairness and about trust between those who serve us and those of us who are meant to serve them. The motion before us seems to be pretty straightforward. It reaffirms something that we should never have to debate, which is that our health workers deserve pay parity, just as they did in January 2020 and just as they did in February 2024. Upon the restoration of the institutions last year, many promises were made, with health staff, rightly, at the very top of the list. Within days of the Assembly's returning, Minister Swann, the then Minister of Health, was able to present a deal that saw pay parity restored. When Minister Nesbitt took up the post, he was absolutely clear that he wanted the 2024-25 pay award to be delivered as quickly as possible. Through persistence and an innovative but successful approach, he made sure that staff got the increase that they deserved. He also said, however — this is important — that he wanted it to be the last time that health workers were left waiting until so late in the year before knowing whether they were going to achieve parity and whether previous commitments would be honoured. Every party here nodded along in agreement, yet here we are again. Almost six months into the new financial year, our health and social care workers are still waiting for their increase whilst their colleagues in England, Scotland and Wales have already received theirs. I am sure that most of us will agree that that is unacceptable. I will pause there, because this is about more than just money. I know that some Members will find this a shock, but I used to work in the Fire Service. I know that that will have been a secret to some, but I want to use the Fire Service again as an illustration of how I genuinely know what it is like to go in and sacrifice more than your time by putting yourself in risky situations during a shift in which you do not know what is coming, while knowing that your community depends on you. That is what our health and social care staff do every day. It is what our nurses, doctors, paramedics, porters, cleaners, admin staff and allied health professionals (AHPs) do. They do not clock in for the money, although fair pay matters; they do it because they care, they want to serve and they believe in what they do. Here is the reality: they are serving in environments that are already stretched to breaking point. The wards are short-staffed, colleagues cover double shifts, patients are waiting for longer than ever, and the staff are going home physically and emotionally exhausted. On top of that, when they feel undervalued because promises of parity have been made but not delivered, it does not just dent morale but drives staff away. It makes recruitment harder, and it weakens the entire health system. Let us be honest: this is not a new problem. It was not that long ago that Northern Ireland's health workers, for the first time in their history, took to the picket lines. They stood in the cold with placards in hand, not because they wanted to be there but because they felt that they had no choice. The patients waiting at home did not blame the staff; they blamed the politicians, and rightly so. Those strikes were a collective demand to be heard when every other avenue had failed them. Colleagues, we cannot and must not allow health workers to be forced into that position again, because the cost of failure is not just borne by the workforce. It is borne by every patient waiting for treatment, every family desperate for care and every community that depends on the system to function, and, yet, here we are again. Pay awards have been implemented in England, Scotland and Wales, but, in Northern Ireland, sadly, they remain stalled. Every week of delay makes industrial action more likely and erodes trust in the Assembly, and the workforce is depending on us. Let us not kid ourselves: unless the Executive act soon, industrial action will come. When it comes, it will be massive. I fear the damage that it will inflict on the Programme for Government target for waiting lists. Some Members will point out the scale of the savings that the Department of Health has already made, and, if they are not going to point it out, I certainly will. The Minister has said that the savings that he has achieved this year are "unprecedented", but, even with that, a gap remains, and around £200 million of that relates to pay. It is not a problem that the Department of Health can fix on its own. The problem requires collective Executive responsibility, and it requires us to step up, because failure to act will not be measured in abstract numbers; it will be measured in pickets at hospital gates, exhausted staff leaving the service and waiting lists that grow even longer. Every party in the Chamber stood on a platform that promised to deliver for our health workers. We clapped for them during the pandemic. We praise them in speeches. We wrote in manifestos that their work would be recognised and rewarded, but promises mean nothing without delivery. If we allow health workers in Northern Ireland to fall behind their counterparts elsewhere, we will have broken faith not only with them but with the people who trusted us to stand by them. I am not surprised that the trade unions are growing impatient. If the truth be told, as an MLA who is married to a nurse, I am also losing patience, because the issue is too serious to be trapped in political wrangling, and, unless the request of my colleague Minister Nesbitt for ministerial direction is approved soon, we risk plunging into a winter of discontent in our health service. Behind every cancelled procedure or missed opportunity is a human story of a patient in pain, a family left waiting or a child who needs an assessment. Industrial action on that scale is not just inconvenient; it would be devastating. The Assembly has this simple but profound choice: we can allow delay, drift and division to drive our health workers onto the picket lines, or we can send a clear, united message that the Assembly gets it. As someone who has worn a uniform, has stood on the front line, knows the weight of public service and has had to take strike action at one point, I can say this with conviction: fair pay is not optional; it is essential. Our health workers have carried us through crisis after crisis, and they do not deserve to carry the burden of political inaction as well. Let us do the right thing. Let us honour our word and give our health workforce the certainty and parity that it deserves. I commend the motion to the House.

1,241 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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