Debate contribution: Budget 2026-29/2030: Reports

Debate contribution by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 11 May 2026.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

11 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Budget 2026-29/2030: Reports

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5524068

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The multi-year Budget, by any reasonable assessment, is highly likely to be worth over £60 billion over the next three years, and it would set a financial framework and direction of travel around which the Northern Ireland Executive could coalesce. That figure can be derived from the allocations of the multi-year settlement and an informed guess about inflation pressures and future annual Budget Barnett consequentials. The money has already been allocated by the Chancellor and been baked in, as it has for the other devolved regions. Regardless of whether we agree the Budget, the overall funding envelope, short of our using our revenue-raising powers, is now set. Indeed, in the words of the Fiscal Council:

"By providing short term financial support, without any conditionality ... – and in addition agreeing to a relatively generous repayment period – the Treasury is helping NI departments ameliorate what would otherwise be a sharp fall in their real spending capacity next year."

It goes on to say, however:

"But by offering another de facto bailout, and thereby sending a signal that similar support might be available in future years, the Treasury is also potentially discouraging the Executive from facing up to some difficult fiscal choices that it needs to engage with".

With multi-year Budgets, we have been given an opportunity that others may not have. It is obvious that many pressures remain in health and education and in fixing our collapsing infrastructure, and that £60 billion will not cover everything. We also know, because the report has been leaked, that the Department of Finance's approach of asking HM Treasury to do an open-book exercise — why? — in the rather bizarre belief that it would think that we were being underfunded and funded below need was, to say the least, naive. That the Treasury could find up to —.

Certainly, Minister.

Thank you very much indeed. I thank the Minister for his comments. That the Treasury could find up to £3·5 billion in savings is an overstatement. However, the Fiscal Council's analysis that we have a civil servant equivalent of 1·88 to 1 compared with a similarly large English or Welsh authority should set off huge alarm bells. The fact that we have spent over £200 million on infrastructure projects and not laid one metre of tarmac is a scandal. "Blame the Brits" seems to be the only default option, but that is a very hollow argument. If our "1·88 Civil Service" delivered anything other than inefficiency, we could have had an argument to challenge the Treasury on level of need. Quite frankly, given those circumstances, who can say that we can? In the Fiscal Council's report, I am quoted as saying:

"'the Draft Budget fails to deliver service transformation, ignores fiscal advice, and should prioritise reform and efficiency before any new revenue-raising.'".

It also says that I noted:

"'the allocations are insufficient to achieve the necessary transformation', with waste and inefficiency needing addressed first."

The multi-year Budget is not a panacea for gross mismanagement, inefficiency and abysmally poor policy decisions or even implementation. An appropriate response by an Executive who were functional would be to pass the Budget while the moneys are there, set the direction of travel and revisit it post May next year. The acceptance of the Budget would allow the resource, capital, financial transactions capital (FTC), reinvestment and reform initiative (RRI) and the other provisions envelope to be accessed, not 45% of last year's or the starting position of the 2025-26 Budget by July and 95% by the end of the year; and not the much larger figure in the draft three-year Budget. Just for clarity, those restrictions are caused not by the big, bad Brits in Whitehall but by our own legislation. The £60 billion is there. We are just not allowed to spend it because of our devolved legislative powers: we have not taken the legal responsibility of actually passing the Budget. That combination of political and budgetary naivety is never, ever a good way to look at how we do business. Equally, the belief that failing to bring a Budget before the Executive so that it can be debated here in the Assembly, as opposed to the Finance Committee scrutinising a draft Budget, is in some way politically advantageous in the lead-up to the Assembly election in 2027, or earlier, does a huge disservice to the people of Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, nothing of what I say today will sway the DUP to allow the Budget to proceed or Sinn Féin to act in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. We could then start to take an exceptionally hard look at the inefficiencies, waste and gross mismanagement in our public services. However, the Assembly now has it on record that we cannot keep on doing what we have been doing. We cannot rely on bailout after bailout after bailout to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland. Getting a three-year Budget on to the Executive table would be a great start. Getting it passed here in the Assembly would be even better.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:38 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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