TUV leader Jim Allister today tabled an amendment to the Supply Resolution seeking to balance the budget. Tabling his amendment Mr Allister said:
“I have two little grandsons aged four and two. Very occasionally, they come to overnight with us when their parents have to be away. When that happens, the four-year-old will bounce into the house with his little suitcase and say, “I’m here on a pretend holiday.” It is quite funny from a four-year-old. There is nothing funny about a Finance Minister coming to the House and putting before us a pretend Budget and pretend Estimates; pretending that she has and will have all the money anticipated in the 2015-16 Budget Bill; pretending that we have not had the reneging on welfare reform; pretending that we do not have a £604 million black hole in our budgetary arrangements; and pretending that we can simply carry on as if none of that had ever happened.
“Of course, in doing that, the Minister herself is performing a considerable U-turn, because, during the welfare reform debate back at the end of May and in many public media interviews at that time, she identified the £604 million black hole in the Budget that had resulted. She told the House:
“we will not put our hands to supporting such a Budget”. — [Official Report, Vol 105, No 1, p82, col 1].
“Yet the Budget that she will bring tomorrow and upon which these Estimates are based is precisely that: a Budget with a £604 million black hole.
“One of the main functions of the Assembly is financial management. The Minister suggested that I was misguided in my amendment. I refer the Minister to her own Department’s guidance manual on Supply Estimates in Northern Ireland. I need go no further than the second paragraph of the foreword, where it says:
“As this manual will endeavour to explain, the Supply Estimates are at the heart of public spending control. It is through the Estimates that the Executive seeks the Assembly’s authority for its spending plans”.
“The exercise in which we are engaged is fundamental to the budgetary arrangements that prevail. Who is to say that this House has not got the sovereign right to amend the Estimates? Of course it has. It is this House and this House alone that can give the imprimatur of approval to the Estimates and the spending plans, so this House is well within its powers in considering that.
“Mr Speaker, the reality is that we are being asked to set a Budget, which, as the Minister knows, is not balanced, and which, as the Minister knows, will hit the buffers. If the House and the Executive cannot set a balanced Budget, the Executive cannot govern. That is what it comes down to. Of course, all of this scenario is a product of the failure of the system of government. The crisis that the Minister alludes to is the product of that. In mandatory coalition, parties have vetoes, which Sinn Féin recklessly exercises. It can blow hot and cold, as it has on welfare reform, and hole the budgetary process below the waterline, as it so cavalierly has done. The fact that that can happen is a product of the failure of the system of government. Today is an attempt to ignore that and an attempt to prop that up at the expense of all credibility.
“This exercise makes the Assembly and the Executive an even greater laughing stock than it is already. We are going to pass Estimates even though we know the money is not there. We know there is a £604 million black hole, but we are going to pretend that all is well. It has been well labelled a fantasy Budget — a phantom Budget. When a parliamentary Assembly gets to the point of debating and approving fantasy financial arrangements, it fast loses any remaining shred of credibility. That is where we are.
“It also, of course, is folly to totally abandon any sense of financial probity. Yes, these Estimates add up, but they add up to a phantom figure. In that sense, they are an escapade in false accounting, because the Minister knows — we all know — that whatever they say, there is a £604 billion black hole.
“I was thinking about what a Sinn Féin Minister would do, if we had one — perish the thought. He or she would probably do pretty much what the Minister is going to do. They would pretend that there was money there that was not there. I would not expect anything better from Sinn Féin in that regard. I would not expect them, on their performance, to have any regard to financial probity. I would not be at all surprised that they would want to spend money that they do not have. They would probably produce a fantasy Budget as well. Of course, in the producing of this fantasy Budget, the Minister is buying time for the Sinn Féin shenanigans on the budgetary front in the hope against hope that something will turn up.
“What will happen further down the road? That is a question I would like the Minister to address in her reply. She has set out this fantasy Budget, which is £604 million, in her terms, short. If nothing changes, what happens? What happens when she gets to the spring Supplementary Estimates? What happens when she gets to the Budget Bill, next year? It is quite clear from the guidance that she cannot amend these Estimates without the consent of the Executive. Para 1·8 of her guidance manual states that any significant changes to the Supply Estimates, in terms of content, must be cleared by DFP with the Executive.
“So, we are hurtling down the road, spending money we do not have, and we reach the point where, effectively, the money has run out. The Minister wants to revise the Estimates to save the situation and to make budgetary changes to reconcile and remedy the situation. What does she think is going to happen? Does she think that Sinn Féin is simply going to say, “Yes, that’s all right. Suddenly, we’ve had a conversion on financial probity”.
Mrs Foster: Will the Member give way?
Mr Allister: Yes.
Mrs Foster: Has the Member not just made the argument for why his amendment should not succeed, when he made reference to the fact that it is only the Executive that can change the Supply resolution?
Mr Allister: I am sorry. When she reflects on what she has said, the Minister may regret that she made that intervention, because the wording of para 1.8 of the manual is:
“Any … changes to the Supply Estimates”.
“The Supply Estimates have not yet been made. Any changes after today, after the Assembly approves them, to the Supply Estimates — which are what we are talking about today and which will come with a vote of approval for them — any changes thereafter can only be made with the Executive’s approval, but we are not at that point. We are now embarking on the journey to take ourselves to that point. We take ourselves to the folly of holding ourselves ransom to Sinn Féin saying: “We are quite happy to spend money that we do not have. We block you from making any changes to these Estimates.” That is tough, as far as they are concerned.
“The purpose of this amendment is to show what a balanced Budget would look like in the context of the folly of negating welfare reform. The House should be facing up to that folly, rather than pandering to, and practising, the economics of fantasy.”