I beg to move

That Standing Order 42(5) be suspended in respect of the passage of the Budget Bill.

In accordance with convention, the Business Committee has not allocated any time limit to the debate.

There is an urgent need for a Budget Bill to be passed before Departments reach the cash limits set in the previous Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Act 2023. The situation has arisen because of several unique circumstances. The previous Budget Act, legislated for by the Secretary of State in Westminster, was based on a budget position that was far below what Departments required to fund their expenditure for the full year 2023-24. The restoration of the Executive at such a late stage in the financial year and the need for the Executive to consider allocations to address the overspends forecast by Departments and the funding of public-sector pay awards meant that work could not commence on the Budget Bill until now.

Standing Order 42(5) requires:

"No Bill shall pass all its required stages in the Assembly in less than ten days."

That ensures that the Assembly has time to consider and debate the issues properly. Given, however, the risk to the delivery of public services should Departments reach their cash limits, I ask the Assembly to agree to the exceptional step of suspending Standing Order 42(5) to allow the Bill to complete its passage in a much shorter time. Members will be aware that, when the Bill completes its passage through the Assembly, there are further steps to be completed before Royal Assent is secured, and they will therefore appreciate the urgency of the matter.

Voting money is one of the most important things that the Assembly can do, particularly as a scrutinising Chamber. Yet here we are: one of the first acts of the Executive is to ask the Assembly to rush every fence in relation to a money Bill and not just to have a day or two's pause. The First Stage of the Budget Bill was today, and now, just over an hour later, we are invited to proceed to the important Second Stage. That seems to me to be unseemly and wholly disproportionate to the obligations on the House to properly scrutinise legislation, particularly when it comes to something as important as voting money.

The circumstances here are even more egregious, because, up until this time, with past Budget Bills, we have always had a Supply debate, in which the spring Supplementary Estimates (SSEs) were produced. You could, therefore, see a precise breakdown, line by line, of where the money was going in each Department and subdivision in the Departments. This Budget Bill, however, has been brought without a Supply debate and without the publication of any supporting documentation that shows where the money is to be distributed. Members are asked to debate a Bill that has just headline figures while absent from it is that which we normally would have from the Supply debate, which has been abandoned.

The provision of the expenditure lines for each Department — I hear no explanation for this – has also been abandoned. What are they? When x Department gets y tens of millions of pounds, where is that money to be spent? What is it that we are voting on, other than a global figure for each Department? We are entitled to know, as the scrutineers of the Bill, where the Minister is asking us to put the money. We always could answer that question when we had the spring Supplementary Estimates. We cannot answer it today.

We then compound the situation by saying, "Let us rush it through in a day". That seems to me to show the utmost disregard for a primary function in the House, and, indeed, it diminishes and demeans the role of MLAs, who are not even taken under the Minister's notice —

Will the Member give way?

No, you stick to the videos.

We are not even taken under the Minister's notice in respect of where the money will be spent. It is quite appalling.

I wonder what the Comptroller and Auditor General thinks of the process, if they have been asked. I wonder how the Departments will do their end-of-year accounts, when they do not even have their expenditure lines with which to compare them. None of that seems to matter; just bulldoze it through. For that reason, I will vote against the suspension of Standing Orders, if given the opportunity to do so.

I am afraid that I must agree in part with Jim Allister, which is something that I do not always do, but it is important to acknowledge that we are being placed in a deeply unacceptable position. There is, of course, the irony that some of the people now talking most loudly about us not having scrutiny were the loudest cheerleaders for us not having an Assembly to scrutinise anything for more than two years, but let us stop, pause and reflect on the purpose of what we are doing.

Authorising money to be spent is the most important thing, in many ways, that the legislature can do. We are supposed to have a Budget process that involves the Minister of Finance bringing a Budget statement, which is a strategic spending document, having agreed it with her or his Executive colleagues, to the Assembly before the end of the financial year. At the same time, we are supposed to have spring Supplementary Estimates so that we can vote to regularise the spending for the end of the current financial year. That is part of what we are doing now, but, as has been said correctly, we do not have any spring Supplementary Estimates, so we are not able to properly judge and read across what we are voting on.

Of course, we have not had a Budget, even a one-year Budget, since, I believe, 2021. The process is completely suboptimal. In fairness to the officials involved, there are clearly extenuating circumstances, which were created by a combination of the political chaos that we had here for several years and decisions made by the British Government to not regularise spending authorisations and not pass a Budget Bill at Westminster.

Arguments have and will be made about what will happen if we do not proceed with suspending Standing Orders, and I will say something about accelerated passage in my role as Chair of the Finance Committee, but it is important to say that we cannot simply go on for ever and a day rushing through spending legislation in this place. We are not just granting accelerated passage, which is pretty commonplace for Budget Bills, but we are suspending Standing Orders. Although we will not push this suspension of Standing Orders to a Division, we do not support it. It is not only suboptimal; it is completely unacceptable. We need a properly transformed way of doing Budget scrutiny in this place, and the Executive and, indeed, the Department need to stop treating this place with a degree of, at best, patronisation and, at worst, mild contempt in how we do scrutiny. We need to do our jobs properly and, critically, from the public's perspective, be seen to do that. Therefore, it is important to lay down a marker with this suspension of Standing Orders. For those of you who are new to the Chamber, this is going much further than we normally go in ramming through a Budget Bill.

We are being asked to endorse an unacceptable process, and, for that reason, I will vote against suspending Standing Orders. We have a short time to scrutinise the Bill, which involves large sums of public money, and I primarily blame the Tories for not properly investing in public services generally but especially when this place was down. Obviously, the DUP is culpable for its two-year boycott. We have no time to really look at the detail. It is absurd. At the second meeting of the Finance Committee today, we had a briefing from an official at 12.00 pm, and, if things go according to parties' expected votes, we will have the whole thing done and dusted by tomorrow evening. Where is the time for scrutiny? There is none at all really. It is absurd.

We should not be playing fast and loose with people's lives and public money. We should be allowed the chance to dig into the detail. It is not good enough to rush these things through. What happened to not forgetting about the legacy of the renewable heat incentive? What about all the talk afterwards that we would learn how to properly scrutinise the use of public money? It seems like that lesson has completely gone out the window and that it is back to business as usual here, which is completely unacceptable.

We also have a concern that I want to dig into in more detail later. The Minister of Finance, in a written statement received by members of the Finance Committee, stated:

"It is regrettable that the Executive was not in a position to fund the full c£700 million of estimated pay costs identified by departments."

I do not know whether every MLA has read that statement — probably not — but I suspect that it will be news to a large number of public-sector workers — perhaps all of them — who may not get the full pay that they deserve. It is not just about scrutiny; it is very concerning for politics that the Assembly will rush through the Bill. We have already heard junior doctors express trepidation at the deal that they have been offered. How many other public-sector workers are facing the same situation? My concern is that this will possibly cement an insufficient pay deal for large numbers of public-sector workers, and the Finance Minister and other Ministers will say, "It is too late. It has been rushed through. Nothing you can do". For that reason, as well as the other reasons, I will vote against suspending Standing Orders.

It is important that we are clear about the consequences of failing to suspend Standing Orders and failing to grant accelerated passage for the Bill. Mr Carroll refers to not "playing fast and loose" with the issue, but I would argue that those who oppose the suspension of Standing Orders are the ones guilty of playing fast and loose with the issue. The Minister has been clear that, if the Bill is not given accelerated passage and if Standing Orders are not suspended, Departments could fall into difficulty accessing cash, and the prospect of any pay award for 2023-24 will fall by the wayside. We owe it to our public-sector workers and public servants, who have been waiting this long, to do this at speed.

I agree that this is an unsatisfactory way to bring forward a Budget Bill, but, in fairness to the Minister, that is not of her making. While I do not want to lower myself to the playground antics of Jim Allister, who has had a road to Damascus conversion about the role of MLAs, it is due to the fact that this place has been down over the past two years and MLAs have not been permitted to carry out their role and scrutinise that we are now in the position where that process is necessary. All of us in the Chamber should have been involved since last year, from the Main Estimates right through monitoring rounds and Supplementary Estimates, to get to this point, but, instead, we are in the position where all we have is the Budget Bill. While I accept that there is a desire to see spring Supplementary Estimates, the Executive have been restored for only a matter of weeks, and we got clarity from the Treasury only on Tuesday on what the conditions and quantums of the funding package actually are. It is simply impossible to expect that to be available at this stage. I agree with Members that this process is substandard, but I ask those Members to think carefully about the reckless and irresponsible approach that they are taking.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Member who spoke previously. I will keep my remarks short. I am actually a bit flabbergasted that we have people in the Chamber who advocate delaying the Budget for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. People talk about obligations. The only obligations that we have are to provide certainty to Departments so that they can operate effectively till the end of the financial year and to deliver to the public-sector workers whom we all support — I mean our teachers, our police, our civil servants, our transport workers and our health workers — the pay award that they deserve. Anybody advocating holding that up for a minute longer has those people to answer to.

I thank Members for their contributions. I acknowledge that this is a difficult situation and that it is far from ideal. Neither I nor my officials consider it to be setting any sort of precedent. Obviously, we are dealing with the legacy of the damaging Budget that was set by the Secretary of State that put our public services under immense pressure. Work has only commenced on the spring Supplementary Estimates. We will bring them to the Assembly for it to consider as quickly as possible. Obviously, the urgency with which the Bill needs to proceed has been outlined. It is driven by the critical need to secure access to cash for Departments so that they can continue to deliver vital public services for the remaining weeks of this financial year — not passing it would put that in jeopardy — and to get pay awards for public-sector workers delivered. Therefore, I ask Members to agree to the suspension of Standing Order 42(5).

Before we proceed to the Question, I remind Members that the motion requires cross-community support.

Question put. The Assembly divided:

Ayes 74; Noes 2

AYES

NATIONALIST:

Dr Archibald, Mr Baker, Miss Brogan, Mr Delargy, Mrs Dillon, Ms Dolan, Ms Ennis, Ms Ferguson, Ms Flynn, Mr Gildernew, Miss Hargey, Mr Kearney, Mr Kelly, Ms Kimmins, Mr McAleer, Mr McGuigan, Mr McHugh, Mrs Mason, Ms Á Murphy, Ms Ní Chuilín, Mr O'Dowd, Mrs O'Neill, Miss Reilly, Mr Sheehan, Ms Sheerin

UNIONIST:

Dr Aiken, Mr Allen, Mr Beattie, Mr Bradley, Mr Brett, Mr Brooks, Ms Brownlee, Mr K Buchanan, Mr T Buchanan, Mr Buckley, Ms Bunting, Mr Butler, Mrs Cameron, Mr Chambers, Mr Clarke, Mrs Dodds, Mr Dunne, Mr Elliott, Mrs Erskine, Ms Forsythe, Mr Frew, Mr Givan, Mr Harvey, Mr Irwin, Mr Kingston, Mr Lyons, Miss McIlveen, Mr Middleton, Mr Nesbitt, Mr Robinson, Mr Stewart, Ms Sugden, Mr Swann

OTHER:

Ms Armstrong, Mr Blair, Ms Bradshaw, Mr Dickson, Mr Donnelly, Ms Eastwood, Ms Egan, Mr Honeyford, Mrs Long, Miss McAllister, Mr McReynolds, Mr Mathison, Mr Muir, Ms Mulholland, Ms Nicholl, Mr Tennyson

Tellers for the Ayes: Mr McGuigan, Ms Sheerin

NOES

UNIONIST:

Mr Allister

OTHER:

Mr Carroll

Tellers for the Noes: Mr Allister, Mr Carroll

Question accordingly agreed to. Resolved (with cross-community support):

That Standing Order 42(5) be suspended for the Budget Bill 2024.