The Ulster Unionist Party has said that the current 2011-2015 budget is no longer fit for purpose. The Party has called for a new budget that takes account of the changed financial and political environment, not least the fact that the current Assembly will run for a year longer than the current budget. 

Ulster Unionist Party Leader Mike Nesbitt said; 

“The Assembly is at a financial crossroads. We can continue the bickering that characterised the June Monitoring Round into the next round in October, or we can face up to the reality that the budget was never fit for purpose, and start again. We support the latter, not least because we will need a new budget anyway, and the current one runs out a year before the Assembly mandate, so financial year 2015-2016 is a blank canvass. 

“In March 2011, the then Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson claimed that the two Parties agreeing a ‘fair, balanced budget’ budget was proof of a ‘growing maturity’. Unfortunately, as the Ulster Unionist Party constantly warned at the time and in the years since, the budget has been found to be totally inoperable and still looks as numerically illiterate as the day it was agreed. 

 “The best example is Health. When my colleague Michael McGimpsey was Minister, he was subject to vicious verbal assaults when he warned of the negative consequences of the budget settlement. Three years on, and his successor Edwin Poots, has asked for the very sum of money Michael identified as critical to the safe operation of the NHS. 

“Heretofore, the DUP has papered over the cracks in the Health budget through the Monitoring Rounds, but that is no longer possible and they have had to come clean about the problem. The budget simply doesn’t add up, and it is the vulnerable and those in most need who are suffering. 

“My Party understands that bringing in a new Budget at this stage will not be easy, but it is a challenge which the Assembly must step up and face. At this stage I would like to see any contracts honoured that have been entered into and formally commenced.  A new Budget would not be about stopping major strategic projects, instead it would a chance to look holistically at the budget, think again, and bring forward in a timely manner a financial plan that brings certainty to Executive Ministers who are currently staring at a final year in office with no agreement on what they have to spend.”