Debate contribution: Health and Social Care Pay Awards 2025-26
Debate contribution by Ms Paula Bradshaw on .
- MLA
- Ms Paula Bradshaw
- Party at the time
- Alliance 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 5129812
Read the official Assembly record
Text
It is with great frustration that I speak on the motion. I am confident in saying that I do not believe that anyone in the Chamber will disagree with the need to ensure that health workers receive a proper wage for the work that they do. Indeed, it is only due to the commitment and dedication of the staff that we still have a public health service. Without their sacrifices, the long hours, the unacceptable workloads and so on, the health service would have long since collapsed. The BMA put it best when it stated recently that the health service cannot continue to be run on the goodwill of staff. The great irony today is that the party that has held the Health portfolio for the past six years is the party that tabled the motion today. I have some sympathy in that two of those years were spent without a functioning Assembly or Executive due to the political whims of one party. The fact remains, however, that the health service has only continued to decline during those years. The Minister claims that he does not have the budget to cover pay awards for health workers, and the motion is a clear attempt by his party to shift the blame. When will the Minister accept that it should be a matter of prioritisation for him and his officials? The Health Minister rolls out the sound bites, but not once has he provided any kind of a priority list of how he will spend his budget, which, I remind Members, is over half of the overall Executive Budget. Not once has the Minister taken responsibility for the fact that, in reality, he could find the money for those pay awards if he wanted to, if he simply prioritised it at the beginning of the Department's budget-setting process. I think that other Members have mentioned that today, and it is something that the BMA has also highlighted. We have said it before and we will say it again: there is no health service without a workforce. Instead, the Department continues year-on-year to hand a blank cheque to the health trusts, allowing them to spend whatever they need at the expense of other elements of healthcare, including staff pay.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you, Minister. The point that I am making is that you can make assumptions about how pay awards will shift with those negotiations and inflation. Yet again, our health workers have to watch on as their counterparts across —.
I am nearly finished. I will just leave it there. Our health workers have to watch on as their counterparts across the UK receive their pay awards, whilst our staff, who are just as dedicated, hardworking and under pressure, are feeling undervalued. I will give way. I have time. Go ahead.
The point that I was making was that this should be the number-one priority, because we do not have a health service without our health workers.
I am saying that if the Minister came here with his priorities and set out how he wanted to prioritise his money and the priorities for his Department, we would support him, but he has not done that.
When will the Minister and his party take responsibility by taking action to protect our workforce and save our health service?
557 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.04 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.04 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.93 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.96 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.02 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.01 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
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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