Stormont urged to agree provisional budget within two weeks
The Stormont Executive must agree a new provisional budget within two weeks or it will be failing in its duty, the Finance Minister warned the Assembly today.
Delays in producing a spending plan to accommodate the £4bn (€4.5bn)-plus cuts imposed on the North by the British Treasury will plunge people into uncertainty ahead of the next financial year, Sammy Wilson said.
The minister urged his colleagues to work together during a specially convened assembly where a degree of consensus did emerge among the main parties on the way forward in the wake of last week’s spending review announcement by UK Chancellor George Osborne.
A joint Sinn Féin/SDLP motion voicing concern about the reductions was passed unanimously after all parties accepted DUP and Ulster Unionist amendments calling for a collective approach and stressing the need to agree a budget.
“We do have a grave responsibility,” said Mr Wilson.
“The one thing I have found as I have gone around speaking to people who work in the social sector, the voluntary sector, speaking to businessmen, speaking to the heads of (health) trusts, speaking to (school) boards of governors etc is this – they want to know what is going to happen to their budget next year.
“That is why we need to have a budget in place and debated and through this Assembly by January at the latest of this (financial) year. That means that the Executive have to agree a budget within the next couple of weeks, get it through the statutory process of consultation and then get it here on the floor of the Assembly for debate and for decision.
“If we don’t do that, we will be failing in our duty.
“I think that it is good that first of all we get the ideas from people but secondly they are quickly put in. Of course, the first stab at the budget might not be the one which is accepted but at least let’s get it out into the public so we can meet the deadline and give those who are going to be affected by these reductions good warning for the next financial year.”
The $4bn (€4.5bn) cut to the North's block grant will come on top of the direct impact of the coalition's bid to trim the overall UK-wide welfare budget and raise certain taxes - moves that could see another £1bn (€1.1bn) taken out of the North's economy.
The block grant is the only element the devolved administration has responsibility over.
The outworking of the spending review have prompted fears of 50,000 public and private sector job losses in the North.
According to Mr Wilson, the region’s resource budget (for public services wages and other recurrent costs) will be cut by around 8% over the next four years and the capital budget (for infrastructure projects such as roads and schools) slashed by 40%.
The hit to the capital spend had provoked particular anger at Stormont, with DUP First Minister Peter Robinson and Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness accusing the coalition of breaking pledges to honour a 12-year £18bn (€20.2bn) infrastructure investment programme agreed by the last Labour government during the peace process.
But Secretary of State Owen Paterson has insisted the North had done well out of the review compared to other UK government departments.
Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness have demanded a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron to raise the capital budget issue and other areas of concern relating to the review.
Today’s debate, which saw members called back to Stormont during the Halloween recess, took place against a backdrop of a trade union led campaign to reject the cuts outright.
On Saturday thousands of people attended a rally in Belfast city centre against what organisers branded as the coalition Government’s “ideological vandalism” of local public services.
But Mr Wilson has been sceptical of such demonstrations, insisting the chancellor is not going to suddenly reverse his decisions and that minds must be set on how best to absorb the reductions.
Ahead of the spending review, Sinn Féin had also adopted a hard line and vowed to resist the cuts.
But the party’s focus has appeared to shift in recent weeks – with republicans continuing to denounce the cuts but also putting more emphasis on developing proposals to raise revenue to offset them.
This was confirmed today when the party backed the UUP amendment calling for an agreed budget to be struck.
Party president Gerry Adams said the Assembly had to deal with the crisis and deliver for the electorate.
“We have met many challenges in the recent past,” said the West Belfast MP. “But the current crisis might be the most challenging of all, impacting as it does on the social and economic rights of citizens.”
A levy on mobile telephone masts and a restructuring of the Housing Executive’s finances are among proposals outlined in Sinn Féin’s economic blueprint - entitled “There is a better way” – to cope with the cuts.
Mr Adams said the debate gave the Assembly an opportunity to send out a united message.
“There is a positive and achievable alternative to the Tory slash and burn approach,” he said.
“Let us get a positive consensus on that and agree on practical steps so that the Executive can take the lead in the fightback and in mapping out a better way forward for those who depend upon us most.”
Mr Wilson poured scorn on many of the Sinn Féin ideas, claiming they were not realistic, a charge that provoked ire among republicans, with John O’Dowd (Upper Bann) accusing him of taking a disgraceful attitude toward his party.
And while this was one of a number of spats across the floor of the chamber throughout the debate, the unanimity when it came to the vote did suggest Executive ministers are prepared to at least start to work together to develop a new spending plan.
