Chris Heaton-Harris yet to receive any financial ‘ask’ from DUP for restoration of Stormont executive; ‘Desperate need’ to get Assembly back up and running, adds Northern Ireland secretary

More than a year after the latest effective collapse of the Assembly, Chris Heaton-Harris was left to set a budget for the region in the absence of locally elected ministers.

He said a lot was being asked of the civil service, which was running departments without ministers in a challenging financial environment.

Mr Heaton-Harris also declined to comment on any potential financial package for a restored Assembly, saying the Executive must be re-established before other questions were addressed.

Northern Ireland is facing significant real-term cuts to public services amid soaring inflation and additional pressures including a series of public sector pay demands.

The Stormont parties are set to meet with head of the region’s civil service Jayne Brady later this week.

Last week’s local government election saw Sinn Fein overtake the DUP to become the largest party on the councils, after it became the largest party at Stormont last year. But the DUP is holding firm on not returning to Stormont until their concerns around the Northern Ireland Protocol are addressed.

The DUP maintains its vote in the poll, which leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson described as a mandate for his stance.

Speaking at the launch of the Trade NI report at Westminster on Tuesday, Mr Heaton-Harris said he wanted to see Stormont back “as soon as possible”.

Asked whether he had received any request from the DUP in terms of money around the resumption of Stormont, he said: “I’m yet to receive any ask from the DUP, but we’ve got talks ongoing this week and they’ll continue, we will get somewhere at some point.”

Asked whether there would be money available for a restored Stormont, Mr Heaton-Harris said it was imperative to get the Executive up and running first.

“I think we want to get the Executive up and running before we go anywhere near any other questions, because there is a desperate need to get the Executive up and running,” he said. “I’ve asked a lot of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, who are delivering public services in a certain way at this point in time. I think we’ve seen that people want their politicians to get into Stormont and start making political choices about how money is spent in Northern Ireland, and that’s what we need to see.”

He replied simply “yeah”, when asked whether there was any meaningful engagement ongoing with the DUP.

“I don’t do timelines, and I’m afraid the one thing I have learned is that conversations are best done in a confidential manner … and I’m looking forward to continuing those conversations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Heaton-Harris said he had congratulated Sinn Fein on becoming the largest party in Northern Ireland at local government.

“It’s a function of democracy, I congratulated them on a good result. I don’t think it particularly changes the nature of how I engage with them,” he said.

He declined to comment on his view as a member of the Conservative and Unionist party on that development.

“That’s a general question for unionism actually, I’m a great believer that unionism is stronger when it is positive and we need to be very positive about what the union can bring to everybody, all communities in Northern Ireland,” he said. “I’m an English unionist, so I would struggle to define what it means for Northern Ireland unionism, but I just know the union is better and stronger when we are positive.”