Stormont Opposition to vote against Budget

Rebecca Black, PA

Stormont’s official Opposition is to vote against the Budget, criticising it as “listless”.

The Executive agreed its Budget for 2025/26 in April, with increased investment pledged to tackle hospital waiting lists and support parents with the cost of childcare.

Finance Minister John O’Dowd is set to bring his Budget to the Assembly later for MLAs to vote on.

However, the Opposition has indicated it will vote against the Budget, and has published a five-point plan to improve it.

The proposals include ensuring that at least 10% of departmental spending must be ringfenced and matched to Programme for Government priorities, and securing Executive control over more tax, borrowing and spending powers.

The SDLP has also proposed creating a Northern Ireland Regional Investment Bank, which is empowered to participate in co-financed and cross-border projects and to legislate for a Future Generations Act to embed long-term thinking into all government decision-making and spending.

Opposition leader Matthew O’Toole said the Budget is “listless” and “more of the same”.

He said when the Executive was restored last February, much had been promised.

“But so far has been marked by the same inaction and lack of ambition the public has become all too used to,” he said.

“The Programme for Government was late and filled with gauzy aspiration but little by way of clear targets, and the Budget which followed has completely failed to match what few targets there are to specific resources.

“But Executive ministers, particularly successive Sinn Fein finance ministers, have been only too keen to lump all the blame on the UK Government while doing next to nothing to take more fiscal power locally to manage our own finances and set out our own priorities.

“A Fiscal Commission report, nearly four years old and full of suggestions for greater local power, has sat on the shelf while Sinn Féin ministers have paid empty lip service to its findings.

“With many public services in crisis, crumbling water infrastructure and environmental degradation, it is vital that we take proper power locally to improve things for our citizens.

“We will oppose today’s listless, more of the same Budget from the Executive, but as a constructive Opposition, we will also publish our own ideas for taking more responsibility and more power here, rather than simply blame a UK Government we know will rarely prioritise the interests of our citizens.”