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Budget (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

I shall give a few figures in respect of the headlines for education and health before seeking to answer some of the more detailed questions. The Northern Ireland budget for education is over 20 per cent of the Northern Ireland Budget of£9 billion, which is second to the health department. It is a substantial part of public expenditure. Since 1997, the funding has increased by more than 60 per cent; and that is with a decrease of about 6 per cent in pupil numbers. Also since 1997, funded pre-school places have doubled, so over 90 per cent of children get a better quality start to their education. Some £210 million is being invested to bring interactive learning into all classrooms. Over the past seven years on capital, there have been 230 major project schemes with an investment of over £1.3 billion. In the past two years, over £600 million has been invested, covering 91 schemes. In 2006-07, the Department of Education allocated £20 million to the education and library boards for maintenance. There is a problem with surplus places. I do not think that it needs to be addressed here today, but it is a serious issue. There are 50,000 surplus places and two-thirds are in the primary sector. Only 8 per cent of them are in small schools. There are many—too many—small schools in Northern Ireland, but that is not where the surplus places are. The issue is going to get worse with, we reckon, a decline by a further 30,000 places over the next 10 years. In terms of achievements, 61 per cent of school leavers are achieving five or more GCSEs, compared to 57 per cent in England. Some 97 per cent of pupils achieve two or more A-level passes, compared to 95 per cent in England. On both those fairly narrow but important indicators, the success rate is better than England. A lot of reforms are under way, whether it is post-primary education—on which we will have a debate of substance next Monday evening, and the revised curriculum arrangements are included in that—new procurement and delivery arrangements for the schools estate, or a single education and skills authority. I have few figures on health. I said initially that there is an increase of 7.5 per cent from the 2005-06 into this year. Much of the additional development resources will be spent on tackling waiting times in Northern Ireland. Some £140 million is required to meet the increased pressures on the pay bill. About £217 million will be available for capital development and health and social services. I was asked about the effect of the money on waiting lists. When the new team of Ministers arrived in May 2005, the waiting list situation was a bit of a surprise to us; we had been quite ignorant about the situation in Northern Ireland. We put additional investment in, and this year there has been a further investment of another £12 million and a further £18 million, to bring the total to £35 million. The major reform programme is under way, and the number of people waiting more than 12 months for hospital treatment has fallen from about 4,000 to zero, so there has been a substantial difference in the past year. Waiting times will be further reduced over the coming year, and by March 2007 our estimate is that no one will be waiting more than six months for surgery. That was a major issue that we discovered in 2005 and, frankly, people in Northern Ireland do not deserve anything less in terms of health than the rest of the UK. The Government have put a lot of effort into reducing waiting times across England, Scotland and Wales and we have started to do that also in Northern Ireland. Following the education and library boards’ overspend last year, an inquiry was initiated. The department has been monitoring progress against the action plans agreed with both the boards—the Belfast board and the South Eastern board—and the Jack report made 49 specific recommendations. The review of the implementation recommendations has been initiated and a report is due to be made to the Department of Education’s permanent secretary later this month. I will make sure that noble Lords are made aware of the findings. Efficiency savings of some £580 million have been targeted for delivery by March 2008. The latest monitoring shows that we are well on target for that delivery and further efficiencies are being pursued by the work streams relating to the Comprehensive Spending Review, which all departments will have to go through. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is right that we want to get efficiency savings, but they must be efficiency savings and not just savings. We do not want to create savings by denuding services. The noble Lord also asked about the implications of the Review of Public Administration. It is designed to deliver better services. Following the implementation of the review, there should be a clear separation between policy formation and operational delivery in the education service. That should result in the transfer of some functions from the Department of Education to the new education and skills authority. There are major changes. A lot of the PR about the Review of Public Administration centred on local government, but we always made it clear that the Assembly had set up a three-strand approach: education; health and local government. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, asked about falling pupil numbers. I do not have all the answers. As part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, we have asked Sir George Bain to take a strategic view so that we can look at what school provision can be made to encourage greater sharing, collaboration and achieving higher standards. As I have said before, it is possible to do that, and there are good examples. You can operate more than one school in a building, which at least gives some shared services and a shared community, although you can maintain separate schools. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, asked me about integrated education. In 2006-07, approximately £25 million has been allocated for capital development in grant-maintained integrated schools. The recurrent grant aid totalling £56 million will be paid to the grant-maintained integrated schools in 2006-07. That compares to £3.9 million in 1991-92. In addition, the Department of Education funds the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education. The grant is a modest £528,000 for 2006-07. That provides support for the sector. It has provided a total of more than £4 million to the Integrated Education Fund. That level of funding is consistent with the Department of Education’s statutory duty underthe education reform order to encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education. The noble Lord, Lord Laird, asked various questions. I have said that I will come back to the questions on Invest Northern Ireland that I am unable to answer today. The 2006-07 budget is £152 million for financial assistance. That is based on the funding requirement for existing contracts with companies coupled with an estimate of the funding needed to support new businesses and those projects which are under negotiation. It covers a very wide range of areas such as start up support, research and development, selective financial assistance and business improvement services. I wholly agree with what the noble Lord said about the small private sector and the ability to give grants to the voluntary and community sector. There is a disproportionately small private sector in Northern Ireland. The economy will never grow while it stays as small as it is; there is no question about that. The Government can do an awful lot. We want to do it not necessarily by cutting the public sector, although there can sometimes be transfers of activity, but by deliberately setting out to grow the private sector in every way we can. I realise that comparisons have been drawn and questions have been asked about the different tax rates that apply in the north and the south and about the various incentives that apply, but certainly there is a positive effort to do what I have mentioned. Positive Steps is the Government’s response to the report of the Taskforce on Resourcing the Voluntary and Community Sector, Investing Together. The actions in Positive Steps will help to ensure that the voluntary and community sector is better placed to cope with social and economic change. Twenty-one million pounds has been allocated to the voluntary and community sector in 2006-07. The admin costs can look high and the noble Lord, Lord Laird, was quite right to subject the accounts to forensic examination. Although the admin costs appear to rise in 2006-07, that is not the case. If that is not the case, it should not look as if it is. I acknowledge that everything is my responsibility, but nevertheless I do not remember the relevant line. However, the flat line figure for admin costs has been adjusted upwards to take account of technical changes in recognition of superannuation liabilities, which would always have been there. That brings Northern Ireland into line with the accounting approach adopted in Great Britain. It may look as though there is an increase in that regard, but that is not the case. The underlying trend in our view is a real reduction. I have mentioned the reduction in waiting list times of more than 12 months from 4,000 to zero. Of course, I shall give way.