Wilson versus Wilson on the cuts
Sammy Wilson and his officials sat us down in Stormont this afternoon to run through their projections for the October spending review. They are predicting a 10.7% cut in the Executive's revenue and a 31.8% reduction in its capital budget. What does that mean in cash terms? Well at the moment Stormont gets £9.2 billion to spend on recurring revenue costs (salaries etc..) and £1.7 billion on capital projects (roads, houses, sewerage etc..) Over the next four years they expect to lose just over £1.5 billion in revenue and £500 million in capital - or just over £2 billion in total.
Any reductions to welfare benefits - known in the jargon as annually managed expenditure - will fall outside these figures.
There is still a divide between the Finance department approach of making contingency plans for the cuts, and other ministers' line of political resistance. The Finance Minister confirmed that he had asked departments to deliver him savings plans by the end of August, but admitted that the only ones which have complied are four DUP controlled ministries.
So how long will the stand off over dealing with the cuts go on? On October 20th the Finance department expects to get an e-mail from the Treasury providing details of the Northern Ireland block grant around the time the Chancellor sits down. Sammy Wilson would then like to get local ministers to sign off on their own allocations with the aim of achieving a final budget by the end of the year. He argues that those organisations funded by Stormont, be they hospitals, schools or museums, will need early warning of any reductions in their grants in order to enable them to plan for the future.
However it has been in the nature of Stormont politics for the haggling to go on until the last minute, and with the Assembly elections due in May some parties may be tempted by brinkmanship. Mr Wilson himself acknowledged that things could get "fairly messy" and that some departments could well face "massive reductions".
This evening the Green MLA Brian Wilson argued that "we need cuts like a hole in the head". The North Down MLA may share a surname with the Finance Minister but that is where the similarity ends. He went on to say that the public "must not mildly accept the cuts or believe that there is no alternative. We must continue to highlight the alternative and the fact that the policies set out by the government are largely based on ideology rather than economic necessity and are grossly unfair and fall heaviest on the poorest.
We must also try to defer the cuts as long as possible. Unlike the rest of the UK we have not yet emerged from the recession."
Of course the DUP Mr Wilson might remind the Green Mr Wilson of the role his sister party has played south of the border in Dublin's cutting coalition.
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