UUP accuses coalition partners of backtracking on health service pledge

The Ulster Unionist party is accusing it's partners in the Stormont coalition of reneging on a promise to prioritise the health service as Robin Swann voted against the Executive's budget.

The UUP's Health Minister Robin Swann broke ranks as the only member of the four-party power-sharing administration to refuse to back the spending plan, at a meeting on Thursday.

While UUP leader Doug Beattie stopped short of threatening to quit the executive, he called for an urgent meeting with the leaders of the other coalition parties - Sinn Fein, the DUP and Alliance - saying he wanted to secure more money for the health service.

"Let me be clear, the Ulster Unionist Party do not support this budget as presented," Mr Beattie told reporters at Stormont.

He added: "The Ulster Unionist Party is committed to making our health service work, but we cannot sit idly by while it is dismantled by parties who consistently refuse to take ownership of the department.

"A solution must be urgently found or the results are beyond contemplation."

Thursday's events mark the first major row within the restored powersharing administration, undermining the unified approach ministers had previously been keen to project as they pressed the UK Government for more money.

While the health service has been allocated more than half the £14.5 billion resource budget available to the devolved government, Mr Swann has said it falls well short of the money needed to maintain services at safe levels.

He has warned that the spending plan, which will be presented to the Assembly in the time ahead for formal endorsement, risks pushing health services to the point of collapse.

"The Department of Health was left in a position where we were actually receiving a 2.3% cut on what we spent last year," said the minister.

"Not only is this a budget which doesn't prioritise health, this is a budget which actually removes money from the health service in Northern Ireland."

He added: "I made it clear that I came into this position to fight for the health and welfare of the people of Northern Ireland.

"That is what I did today with this Executive, this is what I did with this budget."

With the vast majority of the resource pot already committed, the shape of the budget essentially came down to how an unallocated £1 billion was distributed among departments.

Mr Swann had initially bid for the totality of that amount but said he was prepared to accept £800 million.

In the spending plan agreed by all the other ministers, health received about £500 million of the unallocated funds.

The minister has already announced he will step down when the general election is called, to concentrate on his bid to win a parliamentary seat at Westminster.

On Thursday, as he faced reporters alongside UUP leader Mr Beattie and the party colleague replacing him as minister, Mike Nesbitt, he robustly rejected any suggestion his opposition to the budget was linked to his forthcoming campaign in the South Antrim constituency.

"If somebody thinks this is a populist stance or a populist position to take, this is a position that actually sees the welfare of the health service of Northern Ireland defunded by 2.3%," he said.

First Minister Michelle O'Neill conceded it was a "very challenging" budget but expressed disappointment Mr Swann could not support it.

She said the Executive had to show leadership by agreeing a budget.

"Despite the severity of the financial challenges that are facing us we have all collectively tried to work together to make the tough choices and to demonstrate the leadership that the public rightly deserve," she said.

"The budget itself underlines our commitment to health, in terms of prioritising health. It also invests significantly in our education services and provides funding for the childcare strategy.

"There is no doubt, and there is no escaping the fact, this was a very difficult call, a very difficult budget for us to discuss."

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said the sum asked for by the Health Minister would have consumed the entire unallocated funding available to the Executive.

"There are other issues of key importance, special educational needs, including broader education, justice. There are competing priorities," she said.

Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald said the Stormont Executive would continue to press the Westminster Government for more funding for Northern Ireland.

In a letter sent to health committee members shortly after the budget was struck, Mr Swann said the financial agreement would lead to an "unprecedented cash terms budget reduction" in health.

The letter, said: "I believe it would result in serious and potentially irreparable damage to health and care services.

"Patients who rely on these services would be placed at significantly greater risk of coming to actual harm and the already intolerable pressures on staff would be multiplied."

His letter added: "I could not stand over the implementation of cuts of this scale.

"I have a real fear that a service that is currently struggling in many areas could be pushed to the point of collapse in at least some areas."

He concluded: "This budget, if passed by the Assembly, will drive unplanned and potentially chaotic change from which we will struggle to recover."

The budget agreed by the powersharing Executive allocates about £14.5 billion for resource spending and £2.1 billion for capital.

Health gets the biggest share of the resource budget, receiving £7.76 billion (51.2%) of the total amount allocated to departments for day-to-day costs.

The Department of Finance said this is an increase of 6.3% based on the previous year's health budget, not accounting for inflation or additional funding through Barnett consequentials.

The Department of Education is the next largest department, receiving £2.87 billion, an increase of 11.5% from the previous financial year.

The Department of Justice has been allocated £1.26 billion, an increase of 8.3%.

While not voting against the budget, Justice Minister Naomi Long has expressed disappointment at the allocation.

Speaking to the Assembly's justice committee, Ms Long said it would place "significant limitations" on the delivery of services.

"We remain committed to innovation, we remain committed to collaborative working and to transformation, and we have some creative ideas about things we can do even within a difficult budget settlement, but ultimately the limitations that budgets will place on delivery and frontline services will be significant," she said.

The leader of Stormont's official opposition, SDLP MLA Matthew O'Toole, said the budget statement agreed by the Executive lacked any sense of priority.

"What people expected and were led to believe would happen in today's budget statement for a new Executive was a clear sense of prioritisation," he said.

"Not just allocation of money, but a clear sense of direction from the Executive in terms of what they wanted to prioritise, how they are going to fix collapsing public services, how they are going to deliver meaningful reform in childcare, how they are going to tackle poverty.

"We haven't got that, at least we haven't got it yet."