Rewiring the State

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

The Prime Minister has been clear that we do not want to impose anything centrally on areas that do not want to combine areas. I am sure that we can facilitate a meeting or discussion in No. 10 North to ensure that we get the right authority, powers and resources for the hon. Gentleman’s area.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome the First Secretary to her new role and wish her well. The hon. Lady’s appointment comes at a critical time for the United Kingdom. She will know that the fundamental pillar of our Union is fairness, and right now the funding model for Northern Ireland is anything but fair. The current Barnett consequential framework is fundamentally broken. It fails to account for the unique, severe and acute objective needs of our public services, health sector and infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Lady, as the Minister for the Cabinet Office and co-ordinator of Government policy, agree that rewiring the funding formula must be treated as a priority cross-Cabinet issue, and will she commit to working across the Treasury and the Northern Ireland Office to replace the outdated mechanism with a needs-based funding floor?

[Louise Haigh]

As the Prime Minister said in Prime Minister’s questions earlier, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has opened a negotiation process with Stormont to look at funding and the funding pressures that have emerged. Fundamental to that negotiation will be reform of the decisions that Stormont makes and the way that the Executive have made decisions historically, which has repeatedly led to funding pressures. We need to ensure that these negotiations result in true reform, so we do not end up in this position again.