Dr Steve Aiken OBE MLA, the Ulster Unionist Party’s Finance spokesperson and Chair of NI Assembly Finance Committee, has welcomed today’s announcement of the further allocation of £114M from the UK Treasury.
Steve Aiken said:
“It was good to see the further allocation of £114M of Barnett CoVID funding today. I particularly welcome the fact that the Health Department – which needs considerable support to enable us to recover from CoVID - received all that it bid for in this round.
“However, given that within the 2021-22 Budget there still remains considerable unallocated resource and capital, and as we still have not seen any detail on any in year monitoring rounds, the Finance Minister should now make clear that he has no intention of persisting with the threat of the ‘top-slicing’ of all departmental budgets.
“If it transpires that the Finance Minister does still feel the need to make savings, I would suggest that it is beyond time that vanity schemes are scrapped and proper support is earmarked for Health, Policing and, above all, the Victims Pension scheme.”