Steve Aiken demands London draw up budget for Northern Ireland whilst no Executive is in place

The call was made yesterday by Steve Aiken, amid ongoing demands for the Assembly to be recalled over the rising cost-of-living.

Finance minister Conor Murphy has previously said that a draft budget drawn up in last 2021 is moribund while the DUP refuses to enter government as part of its protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.

UUP finance spokesman Dr Aiken said yesterday: “Northern Ireland sits in a budgetary twilight zone, with nobody sure how monies are going to be distributed or spent, but with the certainty of increasing costs being endured by households across the country.

“This could turn into a tsunami of rising costs come the autumn.

“Northern Ireland needs an emergency budget. With no Executive in place, there is no facility to re-distribute monies between departments via monitoring rounds, hundreds of millions remain unspent...

“The best way to address these issues is to re-establish an Executive, but it’s clear this won’t happen whilst the DUP continue to refuse to participate.

“The Government is going to have to step in. It has the power to do it so I would urge it to start putting the plans in place.”

A day earlier, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood had declared it to be “immoral” for minister in both Stormont and Westminster to have gone “AWOL” amid spiralling prices.

“People in need cannot just wait months on end, they are facing extraordinary bills here and now,” he said.

“The urgency is totally lost on the political class.”

The Assembly is on recess from July 2 until September 4, and the Commons is not sitting between July 21 and September 5.

The DUP was asked about the idea of an Assembly recall.

It sent a statement in the name of Gregory Campbell saying: “Most of the major levers to help families with costs at the pumps or on their energy bills lie at Westminster.

“We had also proposed locally on 11 March this year that the Finance Minister should give people a discount on their rates bills.

“This would have been straightforward to implement. The best way to put money in people’s pockets is not to take it out of their pocket in the first place.”

He also called for relief from “green taxes”.

More from the News Letter:

• Cleric rejects Dee Stitt’s suggestion that UDA/UFF part of ‘Protestant culture’ as Jamie Bryson announces north Down loyalist is ‘a client’

• Death of DUP councillor John Finlay IN PICTURES AND VIDEO: Major figure in party’s traditionalist wing spoke out against ‘militant LGBT agenda’ and anti-Orange ‘intolerance’

• IN FULL: The e-mail exchange between Alliance’s Kellie Armstrong and TUV’s Jim Allister which led to Nolan Show row coverage

• Loyalist Communities Council boss: I would call an Irish unity poll tomorrow if I could – because unionism just won’t lose