Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 5 May 2026.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

5 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5524822

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank Members for their discussion points so far. The Ulster Unionist Party will support amendment Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5. I will take Members back in time to when the process of putting a fiscal council in place was first mooted as part of the Stormont House Agreement. I was not around in politics back then, but, when we had the numerous discussions in Stormont Castle in 2016-17, one of the issues was how we would make a fiscal council or a fiscal system with an independent body overseeing how we did our finances and what that was likely to be. The key to this, and the principal point that I will talk about, is that, for every input that we put into the system, we should have an output and be able to measure its effectiveness. We cannot do that in isolation, however; we have to do it against the background of what is happening in the economy and the impact that it has on the economy as we go forward. The model that many of us have looked at is the Scottish model. Members have rightly talked about the fact that we do not have tax-raising powers, or at least not to that extent, yet. However, we need to build up an evidence base of the effectiveness of our government: what it is capable of delivering and how it can deliver it independently. We have heard from some Members that we can look at the Civil Service's delivery and output, but we have been around that buoy quite a few times since devolution in 1998, and the Civil Service has never delivered the degree of oversight and improvement that we need to see, nor, indeed, the data and the ability necessary to show how our effectiveness will be delivered. We are in a situation where, to use one example, we have spent close on £200 million on the A5 road, which is vital, and the York Street interchange, which is also badly needed, but have not laid 1 square metre of tarmac. What was the input into that? What was the output from that? What is the effectiveness of that? It would have been useful to have that measured effectively and independently by the Fiscal Council. One thing that we have seen from the Fiscal Council — I will say right now that I am a great supporter of Sir Robert Chote and the team — is the curiosity to look into some of the issues with that. It should be possible to have that degree of looking at economic growth and its impact laid down in statute. The Scottish system looks at supplementary costings. That means non-input costings that have come from HM Exchequer or other external sources. Northern Ireland is a classic example. Every time that we ask what the economic cost of the Windsor framework is, nobody can give us an answer, because the Government do not collect or look at the figures. Those supplementary costings should be linked to the system. We are not doing that. We need to have a method of achieving that in our aims and objectives. In the short time that the Fiscal Council has been in place, it has gained a reputation for stalwart delivery of the facts. It has used every piece of information available to it in the context that we are in. However, it must be able to do that against the wider background of the economic situation in Northern Ireland. That is important. We have heard today about the difference in growth figures. Anybody who looks at the growth figures in the Republic of Ireland will say that a lot of that is due specifically to FDI growth, profits being exchanged or the increase in Apple profits.

If Members were to ask anybody in Dáil Éireann what the Irish Republic's growth level is, they would talk not about GDP but about gross national income (GNI), because they know about its economic impact on people. We have no real information on which to base our GDP or GNI. The amendments would give the Fiscal Council the legislative breadth — perhaps later, rather than right now — to consider those economic issues. It is not about forecasting. We had a very valuable debate in the Finance Committee about those issues. I accept what the proposer said in that regard. I would have gone further, but I think that that is the direction of travel in which the proposer and I wish to go in principle. I will not delay the House any further. We will support amendment Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I preferred the explanation from the leader of the Opposition. Either way, it is not going to make much difference. I firmly believe, however, that it is an area at which we should be looking. It is vital that the council be able to look at the cost of duplication. When we invited in the Treasury to do an open-book exercise, it found £3·5 billion in savings. Although that is a highly disputed figure, the Fiscal Council was able to point out that there are 1·88 civil servants per single job in Northern Ireland. We need to get to the bottom of that, and we need to do so in an independent and verifiable way. We cannot rely on the Civil Service for such figures, given its voluntary exit scheme, which cost a lot of money, did not deliver any savings and has not improved the Northern Ireland Civil Service one iota. It is clear that we also need to look at that area.

949 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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