Debate contribution: Budget Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Mr John O'Dowd on 10 March 2026.

MLA

Mr John O'Dowd

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

10 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Budget Bill: Final Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5436825

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.

Today's Final Stage debate concludes the financial legislative process for the Budget Bill in the Assembly. The Bill provides the legislative authority for the final expenditure plans of Departments and other bodies, as set out in the spring Supplementary Estimates 2025-26, which were laid in the Assembly on Monday 16 February 2026. As we come to the end of the legislative process around this year's Budget Bill, and with our thoughts on the upcoming multi-year Budget, it is worthwhile to reflect again on the achievements up to this point. As I have said in previous debates, while the Executive face many financial challenges, there have been some notable achievements since the Executive were restored in February 2024. Those include: delivering 200,000 additional elective activities in the health service, meaning that people are getting the care that they need; 19,000 families benefiting from the childcare subsidy scheme, leading to £19 million in savings for families and supporting parents to return to work or education; £105 million in the 2025-26 Budget to DFI specifically for water and waste water infrastructure to support investment in capacity, which has helped to unlock more than 5,000 extra properties across the North; investment in the Magee campus, facilitating year-on-year growth in student numbers, increasing access to higher education in the city and surrounding area, supporting regionally balanced growth; pay awards delivered for health workers, teachers, police officers, civil servants and NI Water workers; £100 million of funding earmarked in the 2025-26 Budget for new social homes, plus an additional £38·9 million in additional funding to supplement that; and £10·5 million to help people with disabilities adapt their homes, ensuring that their living spaces meet their needs and support greater independence. You will not hear any of those issues being discussed or debated on many of our media channels or being highlighted in some of our newspapers, but those are facts. Those are facts that the Executive, despite all their challenges, financial and otherwise, have delivered since the Assembly was restored in February 2024. I welcome media scrutiny and media debate, but it should be balanced and should reflect the range of matters that the Executive have had to deal with, their successes and their failings, over the past two years. Members will be aware from my oral statement last week that the Executive will receive an additional £380 million in resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL) over the next three years and £9 million in capital following the spring statement. Members will also be aware that, following negotiations, the Treasury has recognised the significant challenges that the Executive face and has agreed to provide the Executive with a reserve claim of £400 million in resource DEL for 2025-26. While the additional funding is welcome and will provide assistance to the Executive, the reality is that severe pressures on Executive finances remain. The claim of financial mismanagement has been blown out of the water by last week's announcement of the £380 million in resource DEL and £9 million in capital. Why was that money provided? It was because councils in England could no longer endure the scale of SEN pressures that they were facing in delivering those services. Similar pressures exist here. Just before Christmas, the Department of Health in England was bailed out to the tune of £1 billion because it was facing huge challenges in delivering front-line public services, similar to the challenges that the Executive face here. When we debate our public finances, which we should debate and scrutinise often, we have to do so in the context of the pressures that other jurisdictions face, which are similar to ours. The loss of the £520 million stabilisation fund, which was provided in the restoration package for 2024-25 and 2025-26, has made the task of delivering front-line public services and balancing the Budget almost impossible. Providing sustainable public services into the future will require adequate funding from Westminster, as well as substantive reform and meaningful transformation of how we design and deliver our public services. I continue to make the case to the British Government for restoring the stabilisation fund in order to support the Executive's transformation work to make public services fit for now and for the future. Turning back to today's business, the Budget Bill provides legislative cover for the Vote on Account for 2026-27, which was also laid on 16 February 2026. The spring Supplementary Estimates and the Vote on Account were debated and agreed by the Assembly on Monday 23 February 2026. That was a valuable debate, and I thank all Members for their time and contribution to the process. The Budget Bill reflects the same position and will enable us to continue to deliver public services for the rest of the 2025-26 financial year, ensuring that Departments do not run out of money. The Vote on Account will allow services to continue beyond 1 April 2026 and will allow the Executive and the Assembly time to finalise a Budget for the 2026-27 financial year that will be reflected in the Budget (No. 2) Act. Today's debate is on the Budget Bill. I emphasise that the focus today is on completing the Bill's legislative passage so that we can quickly obtain Royal Assent. Once again, I express my gratitude to the Finance Committee for agreeing to accelerated passage for the Bill. I thank all the Committees and all Members for the scrutiny that they have brought to the process. I look forward to hearing Members' final thoughts on this important legislation.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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