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

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 23 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

23 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Supply Resolution for the Northern Ireland Spring Supplementary Estimates 2025-26

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5400167

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I speak as a lowly Back-Bencher. Due to the seriousness of the debate, it is important to put my comments on record. The sums that the Assembly is today approving to be spent are simply eye-watering: £28,100,470,000 in cash and over £32 billion in total in authorised resources. That is what we are being asked to approve, and, naturally, it raises a simple question: where does that money come from? The answer, of course, is the block grant.

That reminds us of a basic truth that, I am sure, the Minister and I will agree on, which is that it is, indeed, good to be British. For all the talk of British austerity, Northern Ireland receives more per head than any other part of the United Kingdom: over £1·20 per person for every £1 spent in England. So, when people look around and see waiting lists growing and roads crumbling before their eyes, the issue is not lack of money, regardless of the narrative being peddled by nationalists in the House, but how the money is prioritised and spent. Let me turn to something more fundamental. In the spring Supplementary Estimates, over £17 million of expenditure rests on what is known as:

"the sole authority of the Budget Act".

In plain English, that means that services proceed without bespoke legislation having been brought before the House for debate and proper scrutiny.

I am happy to give way.

Thank you very much, Principal Deputy Speaker. I admit that progress is being made, but, fundamentally, to do that is to go against your own guidance. The Department's guidance is absolutely clear. It states that the Assembly usually authorises spending by approving specific legislation setting out how a policy should operate. It further states that the sole authority of the Budget Act should be relied on only in limited circumstances and normally for expenditure of no more than £1·5 million — I raised the issue last year; I raise it again today — yet we are being asked to approve more than £17 million under that mechanism. Over £15 million of that sum sits in one Department: the Executive Office. That is not an incidental, technical adjustment; that is a pattern of governing first and legislating later. MLAs should be concerned about that. Of that Executive Office expenditure, nearly £4 million relates to immigration and asylum schemes, including £1·2 million for the full dispersal asylum seekers' scheme. Many Members, myself included, support some of those — I certainly support assistance for those who served alongside our forces in Afghanistan — but the question is one of accountability. This is the only opportunity that the House has to scrutinise that expenditure, yet it proceeds without bespoke legislation and without detailed policy scrutiny.

That is not how serious Governments operate. Millions are being spent on a migration system that I and many others believe has failed: that should concern us. I highlight the £6·77 million that is going to the ending violence against women and girls scheme. Violence against women and girls is an issue of profound seriousness. If that money was being well spent, it would be going to a worthy cause. From my work on the Committee for the Executive Office, however, I am increasingly concerned that those millions are not being put to the best possible use. The money has been pumped out to councils, and we have examples of councils coming back to the Department saying that they do not know what to do with it. We then have the issue of the nature of the groups that receive the money. I recently asked the Executive Office to clarify whether successful groups were limited to those that represent actual women and girls. Bizarrely, the Executive Office said that it did not collect that information. I can tell the House today that Ron McDowell, my colleague who sits on Belfast City Council, has established that at least one of the groups being funded via the £6 million scheme includes men who pretend to be women under the label of "transgender". That is an insult to every taxpayer —

— in Northern Ireland who believes —

— in single-sex spaces.

Thank you very much, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I will turn, briefly, to the Assembly Commission. On page 228 of the spring Supplementary Estimates 2025-26, we see that the Commission is being allocated £64·687 million in resource and AME. At a time when public services are under pressure, the public are entitled to expect discipline from this House. If we speak about restraint elsewhere, we must apply the same standards to ourselves. There are further issues of governance that the Minister should address. The Vote on Account normally provides around 45% of the previous year's requirements to allow services to continue until the Main Estimates are passed. Yet, I note that the Utility Regulator appears to be receiving 100% of its cash requirement at this stage. If there is a sound reason for that, I trust that the Minister will let us know it in his summing up. The Estimates and the Budget Bill appear to be running very close to the end of the financial year. Indeed, there has been a delay of a week. Standing Orders require time for legislation to progress to Final Stage. Will the Minister confirm that discussions with the Bill Office have already taken place and that Royal Assent will be obtained in time? If not, expenditure beyond the levels in Main Estimates would be irregular. As I look around, I see plenty of blue Benches without anybody sitting on them. At a time when many families are struggling, MLAs are in line to get a £14,200 per year pay rise. At a time when sewerage infrastructure is at capacity, meaning that new builds cannot be built, we have an Infrastructure Minister handing back £134 million of capital. How many potholes would that repair? There are major questions for the Minister for Infrastructure.

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

Assessment

Qualifying Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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