Matthew O'Toole
South Belfast · Social Democratic and Labour Party · Northern Ireland
“I appreciate my colleague's giving way. Unfortunately, I was not here for all of the Minister's remarks — like her, I have been in the Chamber for a lot of today, so I had to pop out and attend to some other business. I presume that the Member will agree that these provisions could be more properly included in the Sentencing Bill.”
“Clearly, however, the regulatory and enforcement regime for all those watercourses and marine environments is way out of date ecologically and, indeed, economically.”
“We learned about the antics of Jeffrey Donaldson that were not criminal — so far — only after his conviction. Reporters have been able to go and find that information and people have been able to speak — felt able to speak — because Mr Donaldson has been sent to prison, convicted of appalling crimes, and is therefore less likely to seek r…”
“We are pleased, in broad terms, to support it at Second Stage. We welcome the move towards an approach to fisheries management that is ecosystem-based rather than narrowly species-based.”
“We were robust in opposing those who were not willing to deal with the nutrients action plan, for example, which should have been a core part of dealing with Lough Neagh. Of course, the farming industry needed to be engaged, and the Minister has been doing a lot of that work recently.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In just a few hours' time, the House will go into recess for more than two months. There are two outstanding and grave matters that the public in Northern Ireland want us to deal with, but we are walking away, so I want your advice on Standing Orders.”
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“I associate myself with the remarks about Chris Nicholl. <BR /> <BR />I will speak about the news that emerged at the end of last week — shocking and unacceptable news — that shared and integrated education capital funding, totalling, it appears, £150 million, has been removed from 10 schools in Northern Ireland. I should declare an interest: I am a parent of a child who is at one of the affected schools, Forge Integrated Primary School, which was expecting to be funded. As a serving MLA and someone who follows the policy, it was shocking that I and, indeed, other parents found out that the money was being cut because we received emails from the principals of the affected schools. I have been in touch with the principals in my schools in South Belfast, including Millennium Integrated Primary School.”
“Does the Member agree that it is important that we get commitments first from people who are in the Government now, whether the First Minister or the deputy First Minister, that they will see out what is left of the mandate and that they are serious about making a reform programme a priority for the Executive?”
“That is why we also need to focus on Assembly reform to ensure that we do not collapse again. I reiterate my point that, once we have delivered the Budget Bill, which, I am sure, will pass, we need to have a costed and timelined plan for public service recovery. I urge the Minister to give us some reassurance about when we will, hopefully, see a multi-year Budget rather than a single-year one and whether that will be before or after the end of the financial year and to give us her view on the role of the Fiscal Council. <BR /> <BR />With that, Mr Speaker, I conclude my remarks. I am sure that is some relief.”
“I agree with the Member. It would be helpful to have the Minister's view on when the Fiscal Council will be put into law and whether she will commit to supporting the Fiscal Council having a remit not just to report on public finances but to report on a statutory basis on delivery against key targets in the Programme for Government. <BR /> <BR />The process has been deeply suboptimal. As the Opposition, we will record the fact that we do not support all of the Bill, but we will not stand in its way. We will not be destructive; we will be constructive. I recognise that there are particular challenges for the officials in moving the process forward at pace. <BR /> <BR />This has been said so many times — I have said it many times, and I have been an MLA for only four years — but we cannot do this again. We really cannot.”
“As Chair of the Finance Committee, I intend for the Committee to have those discussions, and I also —.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I said, we need the Finance Minister to be able to engage with the Treasury on the fiscal framework. We in the Finance Committee will do our job to scrutinise that. I am sure that Mr Tennyson, a colleague on the Finance Committee, will join me in supporting a costed, timelined and targeted plan for public service recovery, and I am sure that his colleagues in the Executive will also do that. <BR /> <BR />I have a couple of slightly more techie academic points about how we do fiscal policy here. We tabled what, I admit, was a relatively tangential amendment to the Budget Bill that would give the Fiscal Council more power in law to report on public service improvement. This may not have been the moment to debate that and get it into law, but we think that it is time for us to debate that.”
“However, that does not mean that, when parties are involved in discussions and a financial package is on the table, they should not say to the UK officials and Ministers who are in the room in Hillsborough, "Put it on the table. Publish it". People were walking out of Hillsborough Castle and briefing the media with a piece of paper in their hands about what was being offered. There was no reason for that information not to be in the public domain so that there would at least be a bit of clarity. I actually commend the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, who, in fairness, was pretty consistent about saying that those details should have been put in the public domain. We have dealt with that over the last couple of weeks, however, and it need not get in the way of where we go.”
“You asked for it, but you clearly did not get it. That is all that I am saying to the Member. Through the Chair, all that I am saying is that you might have asked for it, but it was not achieved. It was not delivered, and it was not written down in black and white. The Member can carp at me all he likes about what his party did or did not ask for, but the simple truth is that it was not nailed down in black and white. <BR /> <BR />That should not, by the way, have been a deal-breaker. We should never have been out of the Assembly in the first place. There was no justification for bringing down governance here, and, from our perspective, there never will be — ever.”
“You did, but it was not written down, and you did not say publicly —.”
“I am not saying that. I am grateful to the Member for inviting me to contradict policy, but that is not what I have ever said. What I said was that the Executive parties, including the Member's party, could have pressed for more detail from the UK Government. That did not ever have to be —.”
“The promises from the UK Government should have been put down in black and white and been clear, upfront and nailed down as we restored the Assembly and Executive.”
“<BR /> <BR />I have a couple of points in relation to the fiscal framework. As I said, the Minister is right. She is dealing with a chaotic, austerity-obsessed Tory Government right at the fag end of a long and, frankly, chaotic time in power, so she has our support in dealing with them and getting the best possible deal for this place. I will register again that there is a slight concern that we could have been in a slightly better place, to put it diplomatically, around parties in the Executive not contradicting themselves and one another over what was already in black and white in a letter that went from the Executive to the UK Government. The agreement around revenue raising was down there.”
“We have all spent time listing issues with our public services and the state of this place. I say that to reiterate my basic point, which is that we need a costed public service rescue plan that is attached to a multi-year Programme for Government and a multi-year Budget. That is not too much to ask; in fact, it is the bare minimum that the people of Northern Ireland need and deserve. We, as a constructive Opposition, will ask for that. We will not throw snowballs or tear lumps out of anyone; we will simply ask, "What's the plan? How's it going to be paid for? What are the targets? When are they going to be delivered?". We will not be unreasonable, irrational or unfair. We will ask those simple questions on behalf of the people whom we represent. That, we think, could be a positive step forward.”
“<BR /> <BR />In the meantime, the job of the Executive — all the parties in it — is to produce a costed, meaningful, targeted plan, with a timeline, for rescuing public services. Why else do we stand for election? Leave aside all the arguments that we have had over Brexit, the protocol and some of the stuff that we deal with around identity. Think about the people who have had immense stress over the past couple of years dealing with coming out of an historic and hugely traumatic pandemic, then dealing with a cost-of-living crisis that has made it difficult for them to put food on the table, put petrol in their car or pay for public transport. Now, they are dealing with a health service that is in chaos and crisis. <BR /> <BR />I do not mean to simply list a litany of things in order to be destructive; I list them to be constructive.”
“We want the best, and we will lend our constructive opposition to acknowledging that. The quid pro quo from our perspective, not just for us as an Opposition but for the people of the North, is that they get a detailed, costed plan so that they understand what the Executive are prioritising and how they are spending money raised locally and money, even if it is not enough, that is disbursed from London. <BR /> <BR />The Finance Minister and I would agree — others in the Chamber would not — that we should have more powers in this place. She should have more powers to raise more funding in the long term. Also in the long term, we should have a completely different constitutional arrangement that better enables us to meet the potential of all our people, but that is still some way off.”
“<BR /> <BR />We supported and added our name to the motion in the name of Executive parties, but we also amended it. We agree with them that the UK Government — an austerity-obsessed Tory Government who have inflicted hardship, particularly on the most vulnerable, over the last decade and a half and then compounded their austerity obsession with the most preposterous economic folly of Brexit, the biggest act of economic self-harm that any modern nation has inflicted on itself — have placed us in an unenviable position. Therefore, we support the Executive parties when they say that London needs not only to reflect its acknowledgement that this place has not been funded at need but to properly backdate that funding. <BR /> <BR />We support the Minister in the discussions that she is having on the fiscal formula.”
“If it is not going to be a single-year Budget, can she confirm that, at some point in the months to come, we will get a multi-year Budget that is, ideally, tied to the outcomes in a Programme for Government, because that is what we should all want to see? <BR /> <BR />Over the last couple of days, we have talked about the vast range of priorities and, I think we can all agree, focused on a small number of urgent priorities. The number-one priority is paying public-sector workers. I commend the Minister for taking that seriously, opening negotiations that relate to the workforces under her direct remit and moving forward with that. Clearly, that is an urgent and imminent priority. In addition to that, we need a rescue plan for public services.”
“<BR /> <BR />As I have said many times in the Chamber, including yesterday, a Budget Bill, which is what, I assume, we will authorise today, is only as good as the strategic document that it refers to. That is the Budget statement. The Budget statement is, by law, supposed to be presented to the Assembly in draft form before the end of the financial year. I am concerned, from some of what has been said by officials and the Minister, that that deadline will slip and we will not see a draft Budget. I would like to see a draft multi-year Budget before the end of the financial year, but I recognise that that is an extremely tight timeline. If we are not going to see that, I would like the Minister to confirm what we will see before the end of the financial year.”
“For five of the past seven years, there has been no Assembly, so Budgets have been passed in an unforgivable, chaotic rush through Westminster, often with minimal debate. For a number of years, of course, there was only one party representing Northern Ireland that took its seats and outlined its position in Parliament. It was not a position that, I am afraid, was shared by everybody in the Chamber or in our society. That was clearly suboptimal. When we came back in 2020, we had two and a bit years of extremely rushed and chaotic Budget-making, which often happened with minimal information being available; the granting of accelerated passage; minimal and compromised scrutiny; and one-year Budgets without a multi-year Budget process or coherent Programme for Governments to judge them against.”
“In one or two areas, I may be somewhat less diplomatic and caveated than I was as Chair of the Finance Committee. Nevertheless, I reiterate that I congratulate Caoimhe Archibald, the new Finance Minister, who is a well-qualified and talented politician and appointee as Minister. I wish her well in all sincerity, notwithstanding our role as official Opposition, as a scrutiny and accountability mechanism. <BR /> <BR />I hope and believe that, in this place, whatever our politics, wherever we stand on the left/right spectrum and wherever we are on the constitutional position, we all want to do our jobs as legislators and scrutinisers better. In that context, we have to acknowledge that it cannot get much worse than what we have done around budgeting here over the past decade.”
“Officials have assured the Finance Committee that Members will see the spring Supplementary Estimates before the end of March, but assurances on a Budget (No. 2) Bill before the summer recess have not been as strongly stated as they were even last week. The Committee's expectation is that it will be given its proper place in the Budget process, and the Minister is the person to make that happen. She is a former Committee Chair, so I know that she takes seriously the scrutiny role that Committees have. The Committee has faith in the Minister to deal fairly with the Committee and honour its statutory role. <BR /> <BR />I will now end my comments as Chair of the Finance Committee. I do not have a hat to take on or off, as I said yesterday, but I will now speak as leader of the Opposition.”
“It is worth restating that this Budget process has compromised guidance set down in Standing Order 42 around "appropriate consultation" with the Committee and greatly reduced the timescale between Bill stages. Again, paragraph 20 of strand one of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement on Committee scrutiny of the Bill has not been honoured, nor has paragraph 64(1) of the NI Act 1998, which puts the process in paragraph 20 into law. <BR /> <BR />Members have also voiced concern about 65% of the current Budget Vote on Account being in clauses 7 to 11 of the Bill. While the amount is not without precedent — it has happened before — it is much more than the normal 45% and suggests that the Executive do not expect to agree a Budget for 2024-25 any time soon.”
“The Committee must not be put in that position again. There must be appropriate time set aside for proper scrutiny of Budgets going forward. That applies to all Statutory Committees.”
“Indeed, I think that all members of the Finance Committee had the opportunity to speak yesterday, including the Deputy Chair, Diane Forsythe, about the nature of the Budget process and the timing difficulties that we are dealing with. The Committee acknowledged those, but it also made it clear that this must be an exceptional process; it cannot be a precedent. I welcome the fact that the Minister confirmed that in her remarks and that she has done so again today. We intend to follow through in that regard. <BR /> <BR />Officials reassured the Committee during yesterday's meetings that this process would not set a precedent. However, as those of us who have served on the Finance Committee know only too well, the Budget process has too often been compromised.”
“I speak first as Chair of the Committee for Finance. After that, with your permission, Mr Speaker, I will speak as leader of the Opposition. Once again, I thank the Minister for her comments. As Chair of the Finance Committee and leader of the Opposition, I sincerely congratulate her on her stamina in getting through the Second Stage of the Bill, but I warn her that, if I and others have anything to do with it, future finance Bills will be even longer and more taxing, so this is good preparation. I congratulate her on her stamina, particularly yesterday, when she had an issue with a frog in the throat, which can affect us all. <BR /> <BR />Much like in the Second Stage debate yesterday, Committee members made a number of insightful and considered points about the nature of the Budget process.”
“Minister, thank you for coming here today and for answering those questions. There was a report on BBC Northern Ireland in the last day or two about the epidemic of what is called "quiet quitting" among junior doctors. Does your Department collect information on the destination of junior doctors when they leave? I ask that because we know that there is an epidemic of people leaving, whether they are going to the South of Ireland, across the water, to Australia or simply out of the profession. We are losing people at an epidemic rate. Does the Minister's Department collect that information? If so, will the Department use it to better design a long-term strategy for keeping and recruiting junior doctors?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention. She has a lot of questions to answer, and I appreciate her patience. My question is specifically about the Audit Office and its forward work programme. Can her Department correspond with it and give it a little bit of certainty? The control totals in the schedule to the Bill make it slightly difficult for that office to plan. I will leave that with the Minister or her officials.”
“I am grateful to the Member for giving way. He mentioned that being part of the UK is financially beneficial. Does he agree with the UK's official budget, fiscal and economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which says that Brexit has basically reduced the UK's trading capacity and, therefore, its economy and GDP by about 4% in the long run, which obviously means much less tax revenue, which means much less money to spend on public services, including in Northern Ireland?”
“I thank the Chair of the Audit Committee for giving way. I asked him to do so in order that I could make a point that will, I think, be important to his Committee. A statutory body that his Committee scrutinises, the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO), wrote to the Finance Committee today to say that it is very concerned about its allocation, which is just a rollover from the previous financial year. I want to mark the Member's card in that regard, because his Committee will have to do work on it. The Audit Office is worried about its ability to carry out its critical audit and public service scrutiny work.”
“I agree with much of what the Member is saying. We talked about the Fiscal Council having the power to report on a whole range of things. That could, and should, include the cost of division. Does he view with sympathy our amendment, which seeks to put the Fiscal Council in law and give it powers to report on public services?”
“We are compressing debate on the most important thing that we can do as legislators, which is to authorise the spending of money, and that is coming after years of not being here to do our jobs. We need to do much better than this process. I look forward to completing the rest of the debate later today and tomorrow.”
“I imagine that some of the economic reforms that the Economy Minister talked about earlier today would be one. We think that giving the Fiscal Council the power in law to report on those metrics would be a hugely welcome step forward. Assuming that our amendment is taken, I ask the Finance Minister to agree to support it. If it is not taken, will she commit, first, to putting the powers of the Fiscal Council in law, and will she also agree that the Fiscal Council should, in addition, be given the power to report on Executive delivery? It would be helpful if she could make that commitment here today. <BR /> <BR />Thank you to colleagues for being patient as I have gone through two speeches, but this is important.”
“<BR /> <BR />Genuinely and seriously, as a constructive Opposition, we think that one of the most important things that we can do in the mandate is to move towards a culture of delivery, openness and accountability, so our amendment attempts to give the Fiscal Council, which already exists but does not have a statutory footing, the statutory power not just to report on the public finances, as the Office for Budget Responsibility does in London or the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council does in Dublin, but to assess how well the Executive are doing on a suite of key metrics. There do not need to be dozens; it can be a series of key ones that are linked to Programme for Government outcomes. I imagine that getting waiting lists down would be one and that dealing with the crisis in special educational needs would be another.”
“<BR /> <BR />Further to that and before I close my remarks, I draw her attention to a suggested amendment that we will submit today as a constructive Opposition. I do not know whether it will be ruled in scope; if you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, have any influence with your colleague the Speaker, maybe I could ask you to nudge him to judge it to be in scope. We have said consistently that there needs to be better accountability and transparency not just on the management of public finances here but in the improvement of public services. The public do not believe a lot of what we say, not because they think that we are all liars, but because, time and again, there have been plans, aspirations and strategies, but there has not been follow-through and delivery.”
“<BR /> <BR />First, let me say that I do not want to bombard the Minister with too many questions. I worked with her in her previous role on the Economy Committee. She acquitted herself really well there, and she is highly regarded. I am aware of the debacle that we face in passing the Bill at extreme and unacceptable pace. By the way, although we abstained in the vote earlier, it is important to acknowledge that it is a big deal, in addition to granting accelerated passage, to waive Standing Order 42(5), which is such a basic provision in terms of legislative scrutiny. I acknowledge that the Finance Minister has inherited a lot of the problems. What I will ask from her is that she is upfront and clear about her decisions on how she is allocating money, the priorities that she is setting and all of that.”
“As I said to the First Minister earlier, the Executive parties, which, as you are aware, do not include us, have, for the past 18 months, been meeting on the contents of a Programme for Government. Most of us who were not in that room would have expected the Programme for Government plans to have advanced a little beyond theoretical discussions. It would be helpful to have a timeline on a Budget, and clarity on whether it will be a multi-year Budget or a one-year settlement. Will it be tied to Programme for Government outcomes? Will it incorporate the costed and timelined public service rescue plan that we all endorsed on Tuesday 6 February in our Opposition amendment to the motion, which we supported, that put forward the Executive's position of asking the UK Government for more support?”
“The Vote on Account of 65% and the statements that we may not have full scrutiny done on the Budget (No. 2) Bill by recess appear to indicate that we will not get a full Budget statement. Obviously, if we do not get a full Budget statement, that contradicts obligations under the Northern Ireland Act. It would be good to have a formal update on whether the Executive expect to breach their obligations under the Northern Ireland Act to bring a Budget to the Assembly before the end of the financial year, which is in less than six weeks' time. Critically, when we finally get that Budget, will it be linked to outcomes in an updated Programme for Government?”
“Even though many of the broad outlines were discussed and proposed at Hillsborough before Christmas, not one written commitment was made public, so far as I can see, between the talks at Hillsborough and the restoration of the Executive. The Executive have spent more than a week appearing to contradict both themselves and what appears in plain black and white in a letter that they sent to the UK Government, which acknowledged that work on revenue raising would begin. None of that, I am afraid, inspires confidence that the new Executive have yet got a grip on either their approach to public finances or their plan to rescue public services. <BR /> <BR />Will the Minister update us today on when she expects to bring a full Budget to the Assembly? Will it be a multi-year Budget or just a one-year settlement?”
“I ask the Finance Minister whether she will, in her closing remarks, give us an update on when she expects to formally commence negotiations with the UK Government, what timeline she places on their resolution and when the Assembly will get an update on how the negotiations are going and whether they have been resolved. I worry, given the chaotic position of the Tory Government in London, that it will not necessarily be particularly straightforward to have a coherent, orderly negotiation with them. <BR /> <BR />Given the incompetence and untrustworthiness of this British Government, it is surprising that the Executive appear to take them on trust over a financial package that was not fully nailed down.”
“First, they pursued austerity, which is widely acknowledged by not just left-leaning parties like mine but most serious people in the economics profession as a self-inflicted harm on the public realm in the UK writ large. Austerity was a mistake. It was a self-inflicted wrong borne particularly by the most vulnerable in society. There was also the insanity of Brexit, which I speak of with some personal experience. As predicted, Brexit has reduced the capacity of the UK economy, thus reducing tax revenue and the resources available for public spending. <BR /> <BR />As I said, the Finance Minister and her colleagues are right to push back on the Treasury and aim to address the outstanding questions asked by the financial package.”
“This is our first opportunity as legislators — there are some new legislators here — to talk about how we do budgeting. We cannot talk about our budgeting in the North without talking about the broader UK position. Others, including Caoimhe Archibald, the Finance Minister, and Conor Murphy, the Economy Minister, have said today that we are essentially reliant on allocations from the British Government in London; and we are — that is the nature of the devolution settlement. I aspire to change that, both in getting more powers for here and, ultimately, through constitutional change in the long run. However, given where we are, we have to acknowledge that the UK Government position and the policies that they have pursued over the past decade and a half have fatally undermined public services in this place.”
“All the while, our public services, particularly the NHS, have fallen not only into decline but, in some cases, collapse. <BR /> <BR />I want to put on the record some comments about the fiscal position and negotiations with the UK Government. On Tuesday 6 February, we said that the Executive and Finance Minister were right to push back against the British Government on the agreed financial package and fiscal framework, particularly on making the fiscal floor a floor and not a ceiling, and to ensure that that is properly backdated to reflect what they have already acknowledged. We acknowledge and support that position if the Minister and Executive grip it properly and deal with in a properly strategic way. I will come back to that.”
“If that is what it takes to keep the lights on and pay public-sector workers, we will not stand in the way, but we should be honest with people about what the Bill does. Collectively, particularly the parties that have brought down the institutions over the last half a dozen years, we have failed to be honest with people about what the document actually does. As I said, we have not had an updated Programme for Government for nearly a decade. We have simply had roll-forward Budgets on a single-year basis, and, when we have not had those, we have simply had things like the Bill, the stages of which we will pass today and tomorrow. It is a Budget Bill like those that are often passed at Westminster and sometimes passed here when we have been bothered to sit.”
“Those organisations were told by multiple different parties in the Chamber that, "We just need to get back into the Assembly, do something with the Budget and we might be able to help you", but approving the Budget means that that cannot happen now. It certainly cannot happen in this financial year. It might be rolled back in 2024-25, but we should be honest about what we are actually doing. We are formalising spending for the last financial year — I mean the allocations that have already happened — unless there is a plan to address those cuts that have already been imposed, but the Minister can correct me on that. <BR /> <BR />I am not saying that we should not pass the Budget Bill.”
“In the short period of Government between 2020 and 2022, we had only limited single-year Budgets, which essentially rolled over funding settlements with barely any strategy, let alone a plan for rescuing our public services. It has to be said that that is what the Budget Bill does again: it simply rolls over totals. Lots of organisations were told at different times over the past year that funding cuts would be imposed on them, and that includes different organisations and charities such as Healthy Happy Minds that provide services in schools and other parts of the community sector. The Bill formalises those cuts that have already happened and that are factored into the 2023-24 Budget settlements for their parent Department.”
“If the officials are sincerely saying that — it would not actually be a delay, by the way; it would simply be passing the Bill through the normal, provided-for time periods — we will not stand in the way of the Bill's passing. However, I am afraid that neither the officials nor the Minister have convincingly made that case. <BR /> <BR />The job of a Budget document, which is to set strategic priorities, was envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement to be the fiscal vehicle by which to deliver on the goals and priorities that were set out in a multi-year Programme for Government. However, we have not had an updated Programme for Government in nearly a decade.”
“That is all that the Bill does. It is a lot — it is a very important thing — but it does not set strategic prioritisation. It does not allocate resources on the basis of what the new Executive have said should be the priorities for the people of Northern Ireland. <BR /> <BR />In our view, as the Opposition, it is clear what those priorities should be. In the short term, they should be paying public-sector workers. It has been said today that any delay in the passage of the Budget Bill would threaten the Executive's ability to close pay deals with public-sector workers. Officials have not entirely proven that point to my satisfaction, but, in the interests of getting those pay deals closed as quickly as possible, we, as the Opposition, will not throw any barriers in the way of getting the Budget Bill passed.”
“That was diplomatically understated. It is nothing short of shameful that we have yet again found ourselves in the position of desperately passing a Budget Bill at a frenetic pace with practically zero scrutiny. Of course, Budget Bills are only the legal authorisation for spending; they do not set out strategic priorities. For anybody who wants to read the Budget Bill, I will say that it is, as the Minister indicated, a short Bill. It has an explanatory and financial memorandum and schedules at the end that set out cash totals and what are called control totals for different organisations, Departments and other statutory bodies. Essentially, those schedules set out how much Departments can spend in cash and give them the legal authorisation to make those drawdowns from what is called the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund.”
“<BR /> <BR />The most fundamental thing that any legislature does is authorise spending following the Government making a Budget statement, which is supposed to set out key policy priorities. However, that is not what this is. We are authorising spending for the rest of the financial year, which is less than six weeks away, and a Vote on Account for 65% of the spending in the next financial year. That is nearly two thirds of the spending in the next financial year, and I will come back to that point. In the speech that I have just given on behalf of the Finance Committee — I am in a different role now as leader of the Opposition — I said:”
“However, given the timing of the Executive's restoration and where that coincides with the Budget process, as well as the rationale that has been given to Members by the Minister that the Bill must be passed with all haste, the Committee has agreed to the requested accelerated passage for the Budget Bill 2024, while also noting that the Vote on Account represents 65% of the current Budget allocation to see them into 2024-25. <BR /> <BR />Having finished speaking in my formal role as Chair of the Finance Committee, I will now relinquish my Finance Committee Chair's mantle. I do not have a hat to take off, but, if I did, I would take it off. I will now speak as leader of the Opposition.”