DUP split on budget approach – Allister
26 October 2010
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-
“It is becoming increasingly clear that there is a split among DUP ministers as to how to handle the budget crisis flowing from the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).
“Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, is quite clear that a Budget must be formulated now and agreed if statutory obligations are to be met and an efficient plan put in place to manage the expenditure reductions. He has poured scorn on the Sinn Fein notion that the CSR can be revisited, but, patently he is not getting the support he would expect from the First Minister, who seems more in tune with the Brit-bashing, head-in-the-sand approach of Sinn Fein.
“Reports that at last Friday’s Executive meeting the First Minister and other DUP colleagues did not support the Finance Minister’s pragmatic approach, and indeed argued vociferously with him in front of the other ministers, add weight to the evident divergence which exists within the DUP as to how to handle the current situation.
“We can’t go forward with any credible plan to meet the current situation without a budget, so attempts to thwart such are wholly misconceived. Given there has to be a 3 month consultation on any draft budget, time is of the essence. Normally, the draft budget would emerge in September/October, at least this is what happened under direct rule, with the final budget being approved in January, so that departments knew in adequate time what their spending limits were.
“Delay will only compound the disarray which the cuts are bringing to departmental expenditure plans and further aggravate the pain inflicted on the public. Without the ordered management of a budget we are going to drift into an even worse situation.
“Yet, it seems last Friday the Executive failed to authorise immediate preparation by DFP of a budget, leaving the Finance Minister in an invidious position and the country ill-prepared for what we have to face.
“Sinn Fein playing silly games with our economy is no surprise, but I think most people do not expect the First Minister to help them on with it to the embarrassment of his own Finance Minister.”
