I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
It is what is known as the Barnett squeeze: it started off at 29%, it was 25% in 2002 with the Northern Ireland Executive, and it is currently sitting at 21%. Over the next 50 years, it will be 6%. That 6% higher sounds great, but it is not when we assess the relative need of people in Northern Ireland and the disproportionately higher level of public services. The pay parity issue in 2019 and 2020, when nurses went on strike for the first time in the UK in Northern Ireland, illustrates the point entirely: pay awards were being agreed in England, but the funding was not being sent to Northern Ireland to pay nurses the money that they deserve.
In September, the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council was as clear as it could be when it said that, by 2030, Northern Ireland will have public spending below relative need. The tensions we hear about today, and the pain we experience in individual aspects of public services, indicate that we are quickly getting to the point where we cannot provide the public services that people in Northern Ireland need at the funding levels that we have. In the next spending cycle from 2022 to 2025, Northern Ireland will see a 3.6% increase in spending, but in England, there will be a 6% increase. The squeeze will get worse.
I say all that not to be boring—I do not like economics; I do not find it that interesting—but because it is crucial. In Northern Ireland, the headlines will be, “Parliament rushes through a Budget Bill.” The Bill is a snapshot in time that crystallises what has happened over the last 10 months, determines what will happen for the rest of the financial year and sets out projections for the next six months. It misses the fundamental point, however, that unless there is a total and earnest recalibration of how Northern Ireland is funded, the situation can and will only get worse. With or without an Executive, and with or without a protocol, this will only get worse, and public services in Northern Ireland will stall. They will stall and get to a point where it is irretrievable. As an elected representative who believes in raising issues that are of huge importance to the people I have the privilege of representing, I cannot let this evening pass without raising those fundamental issues.
6.20 pm