Sir Jeffrey – “ SF has a lot of bluster but no plan”

Sir Jeffrey said,

“Sinn Fein should dial down the politics and focus on solutions. They told us we couldn’t distribute football stadia funding, we have. They told us we couldn’t pass legislation. We have. They told us we couldn’t deliver an HIA apology, and we are.

At this morning’s party leaders’ forum, it was confirmed that the £300m allocation is outside of the budget, is for the next financial year and £150m of it is a loan to be repaid within five years. It was also confirmed that no one supports the draft budget other than Sinn Fein because it would cut police numbers and teachers.

We were also informed that some Departments have bid for many multiples of the £300m to pay for increased heating costs in prisons and hospitals as well as increased fuel and heating costs for the police and court service.

The DUP team has urged the Chancellor to cut duties on petrol, and diesel and give targeted help on home heating. We have also urged the Northern Ireland Finance Minister to consider a discount on rates bills for households. The issuing of Bills could be delayed enabling this to be fine tuned and targeted.

We will consider proposals from other parties but at the moment all we have is bluster without proposals.

I warned the pro-protocol parties since last September that the First Minister would be stepping down if the Protocol remained. They ignored the calls from every unionist Party.

I am prepared to look at solutions to help and if necessary, legislation can be laid in Westminster if needed. That route has been used before but the problem is a lack of political agreement rather than a lack of a First Minister.”