5. Ms Kimmins asked the Minister of Finance to outline the expected impact of the spending review on public services. (AQO 2743/17-22)

The spending review outcome was better than feared but less than what we needed. I set out the details of the spending review settlement in my written ministerial statement, but I will comment about the increase in the Executive's Budget for the three-year period ahead. Much has been made of the Chancellor's announcement of £1·6 billion extra per annum for the Executive, but he was referring to additional amounts compared with a baseline that was significantly lower than the actual Budget for 2021-22. It is more accurate to compare the Budget envelope for the next three years with the Executive's 2021-22 Budget. When that comparison is made, the funding is much lower than £1·6 billion per annum. When compared with the 2021-22 Budget, there is no increase in the resource budget in real terms by the time we reach 2024-25. The capital budget, with a 2·1% increase in real terms by 2024-25, is somewhat better.

I thank the Minister for his response. Does he agree that the British Government's refusal to cut VAT on energy bills as part of the spending review represents another attack on hard-pressed workers and families who are already struggling in the face of a cost of living crisis?

As I said in response to previous questions, there is no doubt that we are in a cost of living crisis, and it is incumbent on all of us in the Executive to pool the limited resources that we have to try to ensure that we help families as best we can. The Communities Minister is very exercised about that and has programmes that can assist people, particularly with winter heating. However, those programmes are limited, and the additional Barnett consequential that we may receive from the Treasury is well short of what we spent in that area last year. I wrote to the Chancellor about VAT on energy bills, and we will see what comes out of that. It is a complex issue, but other Governments have been looking at introducing a temporary waiver on VAT on those bills in recognition of the climate that we are in.

Minister, in June, having written to the Chancellor, you said:

" It is essential that the British Government delivers a multi-year budget as this will enable the Executive to strategically plan the delivery of public services."

On the same day, the Health Minister launched his framework for delivering reductions in waiting lists, but that set out targets to 2026, and the spending review runs to 2025. People will lose even more confidence in us if the budgets that we set do not match the aim to quickly reduce waiting lists. When you assign money, and I agree that Health should be a priority, can you commit that the targets will not just be to 2026 and that there will be earlier targets for reducing waiting lists, not just for the end of the three-year Budget period but for the years in the middle, so that people can see what they are and whether we are delivering against them?

The Member makes a fair point. The Health budget has increased year-on-year, yet the problems, as we have all experienced or witnessed over the past number of days, continue to grow. I am committed to resourcing Health to try to make the transformative changes needed to properly fund our health service and reduce the cost of that provision to the public purse. Of course, improving public health is not simply a matter for the Department of Health; a range of Departments has a role. Indeed, we all have a contribution to make in that regard.

The draft Budget is yet to be set, and it may well be the case that other Departments will be asked to contribute to that outcome. If that is the case, people will want to know what we are getting for that contribution. That is not just about hearing that more cash has been given to Health; it is about understanding how the objectives that we all want to see in elective care and a range of other measures are being met. Shorter-term and medium-term targets would be a very helpful approach, and I would be content to consider it. That discussion is ongoing. If, collectively — I do not mean just the Executive, I mean the Assembly as a whole — we are to allocate a significant chunk of our resources to Health, which is absolutely necessary as we deal with the consequences of years of austerity Budgets and try to support a service that is in crisis, we have to see what the transformative outcome of that will be over a number of years, and it is appropriate to measure that as we go along.