Speaking on the budget on Tuesday 23rd June 2015:
It is a paramount and rudimentary function of any credible Government to produce a balanced Budget on the expenditure over those they govern. Of course, it follows that it is equally the function of a credible Assembly or Parliament to be involved in the endorsing of that balanced Budget.
Whatever we can say about this Budget, one thing that is abundantly clear is that it is anything but balanced, because at its heart lies that black hole of £604 million. That makes these financial arrangements something of a shambles. Make no mistake: this is a failure of government. It is a shambles made in Stormont. We cannot blame anyone else for it.
9.15 pm
Yes, there are some who want to blame the wicked British Government. Mr Attwood even came close to suggesting that the Republic of Ireland could and should be more generous to us, but the truth is that this is a shambles of Stormont’s making. It is home-made and home-produced, and that in itself is a most striking commentary on the state and structures of government in Northern Ireland.
It is a failure of government and the structures of government that we have got to this ludicrous situation in which the answer that government in all due consideration can come up with is, “Let’s kick the can down the road”. That is what this Budget is doing. Let us not face the stark reality that is staring us in the face, but let us buy a bit more time and kick the can down the road in the hope — maybe more than in the expectation — that, in the meantime, something will work itself out. When government is reduced to that modus operandi, it has reached a very low level indeed, and that is the point that we are at.
One of the consequences of that, and the Minister said it, is that, if things do not work themselves out, adjustments are going to be required to the Budget. The problem, as I pointed out last week, with putting oneself in that position is that, to make those adjustments, the very people who put you in the mess have a veto over whether or not you are permitted to make those adjustments.
The Finance Minister cannot bring adjustments to the Estimates and arrangements under this Bill if and when it becomes an Act without the approval of the Executive. Of course, within the Executive, the spendthrifts — those who have no regard to financial probity — hold that absolute veto. Therefore, we are in a situation in which, on a wing and a prayer, we are going through a process of kicking the can down the road and of trying to obscure and forget about the reality that, if something does not turn up, when the moment of reckoning comes, it may be impossible to fix the situation, because of the veto that rests with those quite content to bankrupt Northern Ireland.
Let us not put a tooth in it: Sinn Féin is quite content to bankrupt Northern Ireland and to demonstrate that, in its terms, it is the failed political entity that it has always said it was. The Minister’s predicament is that she has put herself as victim to that ransom situation, in which she can be held to ransom by the very people who have created this financial mess. That is not a good position for any Finance Minister or any Government to be in.
During Mr Wilson’s speech, I asked him how one would get through adjustments in that scenario. He did not answer. I ask the Minister, because the legal and financial reality is this: having voted through Estimates that include £604 million that we do not have, Departments cannot now without adjustments be prevented from drawing down that fictional money. There is no methodology by which they can be stopped. In order to stop them, you need to make the adjustments, and, in order to make the adjustments, you need the permission of those who put you in that position, namely Sinn Féin. That seems to be part of the sorry mess into which things have resolved themselves.
Mr McCrea said that he welcomed the fact that Sinn Féin was giving conditional support to the Budget and that it was a good thing. Is it? Is that not Sinn Féin doing precisely what Sinn Féin always does? They pocket what they can get at any given moment. They did it at Stormont House, and they are doing it again today. They have £604 million that we do not really have, so they pocket that situation in the belief that they can extract more. That was the essence of the hit-and-run speech of the deputy First Minister. It was that they would give conditional support in order to extract more further down the road. He made it very clear that the Finance Minister and the Executive would be a hostage to that situation.
I want to say something else about the Budget. The expenditure for the Departments in the Budget has already been pared back by something in the order of £70 million to £80 million because of the Stormont House Agreement. Some £564 million was taken out over six years of the ordinary expenditure of Departments in order to underwrite the welfare goodies. I assume that that money or the extraction of that money must already be in the Budget. This is a Budget that, in its spending power — never mind the rolling programme of the 2011-15 situation — must already have that magnitude of cuts within it, plus the provision for the penalty clauses that arise from the failure to implement welfare reform. This is a Budget that has already been stripped back in that regard.
I want to come to the question of the £604 million, and I want to ask the Minister how that £604 million is actually made up. I note that she was asked that in a priority question for written answer by Mr Gardiner back on 3 June. When I checked today on the Assembly website, I saw that, although we are now almost three weeks beyond that, that question still had not been answered. In replying on Wednesday, will the Minister give us a breakdown of how that £604 million is comprised? Is there any money in that that reflects the cost of the exit scheme? That is a specific question that I would like to ask her. The exit scheme was supposed to be funded with £200 million this year by loan. Is there any component in the £604 million to facilitate an exit scheme in the absence of the loan? Perhaps it would be useful if the Minister were to spell out exactly the component parts of that £604 million. When she replies, will she tell us when she is likely to make the June monitoring statement to the House? That, of course, is also an important component of the financial exercise in which we are involved. When will that come about?
I now turn to one or two of the comments made by some of the nationalist representatives. I know that there always was a date in July with which some people were totally infatuated and besotted; it seemed to dominate their every waking hour. This year, it seems to be a new date in July: it seems to be 8 July on which the world will end as far as some are concerned.
Mr McNarry: Not the Twelfth?
Mr Allister: So it seems. They tell us this, in essence: how dare the mandated, recently elected Government of this nation state implement the policies that the electorate who elected them mandated? The sheer audacity of it: the pretence that this nation, with its central government at Westminster can, somehow, through special pleading and once more producing the tiresome argument of us being a special case, exempt us from the natural consequences of the functioning of government. Then they foolishly suggest that the party that is in government has no mandate: of course it has a mandate. We might not like that mandate, and this Province might not have contributed to that mandate, but it has a mandate. It is a national mandate.
Whether we like it or not, that is the reality of life in 2015 in this United Kingdom, which provides us, through the generosity of all its taxpayers, with the very funds that keep the lights on in the House, keep government functioning and provides a colossal subvention. Those who complain most about the shortfalls have no idea how we would plug that gap if the British Government were not continually writing the cheques. That is the reality that some in the House seek to dodge, avoid and run away from. Unless and until we face the reality that we are part of the components of the nation state that has control of these matters, we fool ourselves.
Some, of course, as I suggested, are more than happy to fool not just themselves but others in the belief that there is some utopian answer in another constitutional direction. Of course, the reality is very, very different. Until this devolved institution realises that it is not a sovereign institution but a devolved institution subject to all the frailties and constraints of that and grows up and lives with that reality, the mayhem that has been brought to the meddling in the financial process will intensify and grow. That is the reality that the House needs to face.