Debate contribution: Northern Ireland Fiscal Council Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 5 May 2026.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour 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 5524855

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. It has been a useful debate, albeit there were misapprehensions about the Fiscal Council, the OECD recommendations on independent fiscal institutions and, to an extent, Mr Tennyson's amendment, so I want to run through some of the responses. Most of the amendments are in my name. We are content to support amendment No 4 in Mr Tennyson's name. It would be strange of us to then move amendment No 5 or to pass amendment No 5 afterwards should we be lucky enough to get to that situation because it would probably create a fairly incoherent piece of amended legislation. My motivation in tabling the amendments was sincerely about improving scrutiny. I have genuinely not heard any good arguments from Members who are opposed to or sceptical about our amendments. It is important to be clear and robust in saying that. An overarching thread runs though this, namely that, by amending the legislation, we are somehow jeopardising the independence of the Fiscal Council.

That is nonsense. It is nonsense because we are told that, by giving the Fiscal Council additional powers, obligations or expectations, we are somehow jeopardising its independence. If that is the case, why legislate about it at all? By definition, this draft law creates obligations, expectations and demands of the Fiscal Council. That is the entire point of the Bill. We would not be passing it into law if the situation that others have outlined was the case.

It has been said that we are constraining the council and putting expectations on it and that there is something political in what we are proposing. However, we are all politicians, and we are passing a Fiscal Council Bill today that includes in clause 3, not just the power but the legal obligation for the Fiscal Council to produce a Budget assessment report. Clause 3 states what that Budget assessment report has to include. It also says that the Fiscal Council has to produce a fiscal sustainability report. I could literally list the entire Bill: the entire Bill is about politicians mandating in law what we think the Fiscal Council should and should not do. That is what we are doing. Therefore, I am afraid that it is absurd to say that we are jeopardising the independence of the Fiscal Council by asking it —. I am happy to give way to the Minister.

I agree with the Minister, but only to an extent. Of course, there is always a judgement as to how much specificity you include in a piece of primary legislation. That is why, for example, we are debating four or five amendments today, rather than dozens upon dozens. Members could have come forward, including those from the Opposition, saying, "We would like to do x, y and z". We were not successful in getting our amendments on Opposition costing selected. I am not going to get into that debate now, because the relevant amendments are not on the Marshalled List and are therefore not up for debate. There was a reasonable reason for submitting those. However, of course, we could have sought to include costing on a whole range of things, from EU membership to membership of the UK to a united Ireland — any number of things. All of those things would have been politically contentious and highly controversial. None of my amendments are politically contentious or highly controversial, unless you want to avoid additional scrutiny and power being given to the Fiscal Council. I am worried that that is what is happening today, but for the public record I will respond to some of the points that were made in the debate. Jemma Dolan said something that I am afraid was wrong, and I have to correct it. I asked for an intervention and was not given it, and that is fair enough. Jemma said that we were asking the Fiscal Council to forecast, but that is not true. Not only is the word "forecasting" not in any of my amendments, I specifically said in my opening remarks, "We do not want the Fiscal Council to do an economic forecast or a fiscal forecast". I accept that it was something that we looked at and discussed in the Committee. It would have been a big undertaking, and it would have created lots of genuinely additional resource expectations and burdens on the Fiscal Council. In some ways, I would like to be able to get there, for us to have some independent statutory form of forecast, so that we are not necessarily relying on independent consultancies or academics producing our forecasts. Not that there is anything wrong with their doing them, but I do not think that it would be unhelpful to have an official one. However, I accept that this is not the vehicle to deliver that. Therefore, my amendments Nos 2 and 3 are much more modest. They do not include forecasting powers: they are simply inviting the Fiscal Council to analyse the economic impact of the Budget. Amendment No 2 is somewhat more ambitious than amendment No 3, so I was happy to not go with amendment No 2 if we could have a majority supporting amendment No 3. It would appear that the Alliance Party and the Ulster Unionist Party are supportive of both, but particularly of amendment No 3, so I do not understand why we cannot have that. To go back to the Minister's critique about our putting too much expectation on the Fiscal Council, to be honest, the economic power or the economic analysis bit is fundamental. This is not just an additional ancillary responsibility. The Minister mentioned the OECD's principles for independent fiscal responsibility. We asked the OECD, and it in no way suggested that the power that we are proposing is an inappropriate one to give the Fiscal Council. In fact, it identified it as being one of the core tools for economic analysis that is given to independent fiscal institutions. It appears that there has been a specific decision by the two big parties in the Executive to reject that amendment today. There is nothing in the OECD principles to prevent the Fiscal Council from doing what is proposed, and it would not create a huge burden. It would simply put into the Bill a specific power to allow the Fiscal Council to do economic analysis where it is able to do so. The amendment is modest, and I really do not understand — well, I have my suspicions, but perhaps I will be uncharacteristically generous about it — why it is not happening. It should happen, because, given that we fail to do a whole range of things in this place, and people wonder why we have not made policy in a better way, it would provide us with one opportunity to do that. The Fiscal Council does not make policy for us — I will come to Diane Forsythe's point — as it cannot and should not, and the Bill, amended or unamended, does not give the Fiscal Council the power to do so. All that it does is give it the power to scrutinise and to generate better information and data for better scrutiny by the public and by MLAs. It has done its job exceptionally well over the past four or five years. It has proven that it can do it robustly and rigorously without anyone questioning its political independence or impartiality. It could do so with a view to economic analysis without jeopardising that. Diane Forsythe mentioned that we would be writing a blank cheque; I am afraid that that is just not true. I enjoy the irony in the idea of a blank cheque and the Fiscal Council, but we would not be doing that. We would simply be providing for an additional but limited set of obligations on it. I genuinely reject the idea that there is something inherently political in attempting to amend a Bill. We are legislators and, fundamentally, that is what we are here to do in order to get the legislation right. Eóin Tennyson spoke well about the cost of division, which is a hugely significant issue that has been the subject of debate. The passing of either of the amendments today would not prescribe any policy intervention, because that is for democratically elected politicians and Ministers, not an independent fiscal body. It is important to say that council members are not politicians and that the council does not have a democratic mandate. All that it can do is come up with data and analysis, which we have lacked, including on the cost of division. We know that it is there and that it has a fiscal as well as a societal consequence. That could give us a little more data to work with in addressing it and could help us to move the debate forward. Deirdre Hargey mentioned deprivation. She is absolutely right. We know that we have persistently high levels of deprivation, that poverty levels in Northern Ireland are still unacceptably high and that it is about the communities that bore the brunt of conflict. We talked earlier about the Springhill massacre. There is an intersection between post-conflict issues and the economic challenges that face those places today. All those things are true. That would be a legitimate economic question for the Fiscal Council to analyse, were it to be given the specific power to look at economic issues. That is a legitimate economic subject.

I am happy to give way.

I will make two points about that. The first is about the economic question. When we talk about economic consequences, we are talking about a broad area. Most independent fiscal institutions use the words "economic" and "fiscal" as big descriptors, either together or with one hived out. There is a difference between "economic and fiscal" and a range of issues that are "economic or fiscal" or "economic and/or fiscal" that you might not want to put into a Bill. Given that economic analysis is not provided for in the Bill, unlike Acts that have set up other fiscal bodies, we felt that it was appropriate to include economic analysis in a specific provision. I make no apology for that, and I am genuinely frustrated that it looks as though it will not pass today; I hope that Members will think otherwise. Eóin Tennyson made a couple of other points that were really important. In referring to amendment No 1, which is about alignment with the Programme for Government, he mentioned the absence of an investment strategy. The failure to properly join up and create strategic policy planning documents is a long-running challenge that has emerged in so many reports. There is then the question of implementing them, but the absence of an investment strategy, the absence — I will not labour this point — of a multi-year Budget and the absence of a sense that it will deliver a coherent set of plans for the public in Northern Ireland are points that are made repeatedly, not just by me, as leader of the Opposition, but by the public, business groups, trade unions and interested parties who comment on our politics, and they are not wrong. This is an opportunity to improve the quality of scrutiny and to see how well Budgets do or do not deliver. I do not want misquote the Deputy Chair, Diane Forsythe, but I think that she said that I had effectively given the game away that this was about political point-scoring. I do not accept that, because any body that has a watchdog role, whether it is the Fiscal Council, the Audit Office or another body, invariably strays into matters that become political and invariably says things that cause discomfort and displeasure to politicians and Ministers. A body cannot scrutinise Ministers without occasionally saying things that displease them, cause them discomfort or result in difficult interviews. That is the entire point. I am afraid, therefore, that it is a redundant argument to simply say that we should never give this organisation the power to say something that might cause someone some political discomfort. That is not acceptable. The fact that it might cause the DUP and Sinn Féin political discomfort is not my problem; it is a problem for the public, who, I am afraid to say, feel —

— that genuine scrutiny is sometimes avoided. Having said something slightly political, I am happy to give way to the Member.

First, it is important to say that those amendments did not —.

I did not raise that matter, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker.

I am doing that, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I —.

OK. It has been touched on — I have said it myself — that we are not discussing amendments that are not on the Marshalled List. I have been clear that the purpose of the amendments is to improve the policy debate. It is clear that other parties agree with that and see the legitimacy of the amendments. To finish, I will go through a couple of other points, as I had been doing. Eóin made good points about the absence of an investment strategy and the lack of clear scrutiny on these things. I make no apology for tabling the amendments and attempting to improve scrutiny. On Steve Aiken's contribution, I welcome the fact that the Ulster Unionists are in broad agreement with the amendments, although I did not mention the growth level compared with that in the Republic. In one sense, whether or not we are compared with any other jurisdiction, or whether one has a view on that, we need to know more about how policy affects economic outcomes. Whether that is microeconomic outcomes, such as the performance of the high street, or wage levels or anything else, that would be useful. The amendments would simply have given the Fiscal Council the ability to look at some of the economic consequences of Budget-making; it would not have obliged it to build a model to do lots of yearly forecasting. Deirdre Hargey mentioned that this is about independent, objective analysis. Yes, that is absolutely the case. There is nothing wrong with MLAs, whether in the Opposition or the Executive, tabling amendments to improve a piece of legislation — that is not party political. If the Fiscal Council Bill passes Consideration Stage and goes to Final Stage, we will, by definition, be passing it into law and giving it a mandate. That is no more or less political than Eóin Tennyson, me or anyone else putting down an amendment to give the council a specific responsibility. When we are putting a body into law, there is nothing illegitimate about MLAs seeking to give that body additional powers or to clarify what they would like it to do, but I recognise that certain parties in the Assembly do not want it to do those things. The suggestion was made that we would be steering the Fiscal Council politically. By passing the Bill, we are, to an extent, steering it politically. Including the additional words from the amendments would mean that the Fiscal Council would have to engage with the legislation that we have passed and that it would have specific powers and obligations. However, it would have to carry them out independently and objectively, because it has been set up in law, which is the whole purpose. We would not, then, have an opportunity to steer or second-guess the council. If we pass the amendments, we will not be saying at a later stage, "Remember we passed that amendment? That means that you have to do it this way". That is not what it is about at all.

With respect, I do not think that that is a legitimate question. It is fair enough to raise the point that flexibility exists in the legislation. That is why the amendments are flexible. There are not dozens upon dozens of them; there are simply a few in specific areas.

The Minister talked about flexibility and said that the council should set its own work programme. As I said, I largely agree with that. It will not totally set its own work programme, however, because it will be doing Budget assessment reports and fiscal sustainability reports that are constrained to an extent by specific provisions in the Bill. For the Fiscal Council to have an additional set of expectations from the Assembly was an opportunity. Unfortunately, I fear that we will miss that opportunity today. That does not mean that the Fiscal Council Bill is not hugely important legislation, because it is. I am, however, deeply disappointed, because it looks as though certain parties will vote against improving the scrutiny of delivery in Northern Ireland. If the amendments are not successful today, the public will legitimately say, "I wonder why".

2,821 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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