Debate contribution: Multi-year Budget

Debate contribution by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 25 November 2025.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

25 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Multi-year Budget

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5258711

Read the official Assembly record

Text

First, I apologise and correct the record: in my remarks earlier, I should have referred to the Putin apologists Sinn Féin MEPs Lynn Boylan and Kathleen Funchion rather than Maria Walsh. Thank you very much indeed, Linda, for picking that up. I will contact Maria and point out my failure. The point remains, however. I thank the Finance Minister for his recent remarks about the Health Minister and how the Health Department has managed to find over £400 million of efficiencies. As the Finance Minister pointed out, that is an example to all Departments across Northern Ireland's government about their ability to find the necessary efficiencies that they have to in order to make sure that we have appropriate budgeting as we move forward. As well as setting an example, it delivers a message to other Departments: if our biggest-spending Department, and the one that the Executive and the Programme for Government clearly acknowledge has the most pressures, can achieve those sorts of efficiencies, what are the other Departments doing? Bearing in mind that we are looking at budgeting for what we plan to do over the next three years, it also shows that a degree of foresight and being able to look at your future budgeting plans and how you look towards those things is an appropriate level to do that. The Health Minister has made it clear that his priority is public-sector pay. Public-sector pay is important because, if you do not have any workers, you will not have a health service, a police service, a prison service or any teachers. It is important that the Health Minister has already identified that he wants to make an early representation of what the public-sector pay award is going to be in the three-year budgeting cycle. All Ministers should commit to doing that. Looking at that and putting public-sector pay first as a benchmark is something that our public-sector workers will think is important: the Northern Ireland Executive are putting them first. It also starts to put a strong fiscal framework on what we are looking at in the next three years. Having mentioned the fiscal framework, I will talk about the Fiscal Council. In the Minister's remarks when he considers this debate, I wonder whether, when we start looking at the future long-term programmes that there are going to be over the next three years, we can get the Fiscal Council, in some measure, to mark the homework of not just the Executive as a whole but the Departments. One of the things that we need to look at is measures of effectiveness. That is one of the reasons why we will be supporting the amendment. There is a very clear issue: are we getting value for money for public services from the money that we have? It is clear that we are not good at spending money in places. The A5 is an example. It is an absolute disgrace that that road has not already been built. We have spent close to £150 million, maybe more, on the A5 so far, yet not one square metre of tarmac has been laid. What do we say to the people whose friends and family members have lost their lives on that road because of our inefficiency in spending money and being able to do that? I will make a rather sad projection: we will spend much more on administration, legal fees, planning, replanning and judicial reviews before we get to the point of completing it. The cost will probably be closer to, God forbid, £175 million before we do. We have said this before: we need to spend the money that we have properly. Sooner or later, we will have to have the appropriate debate and come clean to the people of Northern Ireland that we have to raise revenue in some places. Before we do that, we are going to have to show that we can spend the money that we have properly. We need to be able to demonstrate that. That must be fundamental to the three-year budgeting process. Ministers need to say loudly and clearly what their measures of effectiveness will be and how they will determine whether the money is going to be spent effectively. We need to do that and demonstrate to the people of Northern Ireland that we have spent the money that we have properly. If we do not have the money, we need to be in a position where we can say how we will raise the extra revenue or how we will get better at spending the money that we have. That brings me to the end of my remarks. As a final point, the three-year budgeting process is where we need to be. We will find out a lot more tomorrow, and, hopefully, that will give us a framework to look forward to. Minister, thank you once again for your kind words about the Health Minister. I hope that you are able to say the same thing about other Ministers as we go forward.

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

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:48 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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