Northern Ireland Budget Bill — House of Commons, 2019-10-30
Topic: Macroeconomics
Julian Richard Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raises an important point. The Barnett consequentials, whether of the spending review or of other allocations from this place and from Whitehall, are very difficult to attribute due to the lack of an Executive. We are seeing a sort of constipation in the system, as we have cash arriving but no decision making to spend that cash I shall now briefly turn to the Bill’s contents, which largely rehearse what the former Secretary of State set out to this House in a written ministerial statement earlier this year. In short, the Bill authorises Northern Ireland Departments and certain other bodies to incur expenditure and use resources for the financial year ending on 31 March 2020 Clause 1 will authorise the Northern Ireland Department of Finance to issue £5.3 billion out of the consolidated fund of Northern Ireland. The sums of money granted to Northern Ireland Departments and other bodies are set out in schedule 1, which also sets out the purposes for which the funds are to be used. The allocations in this budget reflect where the key pressures lie in Northern Ireland, building on discussions that the UK Government have had with the Northern Ireland civil service, the main parties in Northern Ireland and broader stakeholders, and, where possible, reflecting the previous Executive’s priorities Clause 2 will authorise the temporary borrowing by the Northern Ireland Department of Finance of about £2.6 billion to safeguard against the possibility of a temporary deficiency in the consolidated fund of Northern Ireland. If used, this money would be repaid by 31 March 2020 Clause 3 will authorise Northern Ireland Departments and other specified public bodies to use resources amounting to about £6 billion in the year ending 31 March 2020 for the purposes specified in schedule 2. Clause 4 will set limits on the accruing resources, including both operating and non-operating accruing resources, that may be used in the current financial year. The Bill would normally have been taken through the Assembly. Clause 5 therefore includes a series of adaptations that ensure that, once approved by both Houses in Westminster, the Bill will be treated as though it was an Assembly budget Act Alongside the Bill, I have laid before the House, as a Command Paper, a set of main estimates for the Departments and bodies covered by this budget Bill. These estimates, which have been prepared by the Northern Ireland Department of Finance, set out the breakdown of resource allocation in greater detail than the schedules to the Bill This is a fair and balanced budget that provides a secure basis for protecting and preserving public services, with a real-terms increase in health and education spending and protections for frontline Departments delivering key public services, but the budget is not an easy one. It requires savings and efficiencies to enable Departments to live within their means, and it will fall to the Northern Ireland Departments to plan and prepare to take decisions to do just that. As I hope right hon. and hon. Members will agree, this is very much a minimal step to ensure that public services can continue to be provided in Northern Ireland for the full financial year As I conclude, I will set out once again a point that I have made several times before to this House. The UK Government are steadfastly committed to the Belfast agreement. Legislating on Northern Ireland budgetary matters at Westminster is not a step that I or my ministerial colleagues want to take—nor is it one that I would wish to take again. I am determined to restore the political institutions set out in the 1998 agreement and its successors at the earliest possible opportunity. On 14 October, the people of Northern Ireland had gone without a power-sharing devolved Government for 1,000 days. The continued failure to restore the Executive will bring extremely difficult choices about how to ensure effective governance in Northern Ireland.