To ask the First Minister and deputy First Minister how their Department will ensure the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland is adequately funded to carry out its statutory duties, including for any obligations under evolving equality standards.

Mrs Little-Pengelly (The deputy First Minister)

The Executive Office is committed to ensuring that the Equality Commission has the resources required to fulfil its statutory responsibilities, including those that it has under evolving equality standards. The commission has been allocated £4·7 million in resource and capital budget from the Executive Office for the financial year 2025-26. We engage regularly with the commission, including through quarterly partnership meetings and attendance at its audit and risk assurance committee. That engagement helps to align resources with responsibilities and supports the identification of emerging needs. As an arm’s-length body of the Executive Office, the commission participates in the required forecasting and monitoring budgetary processes.

Mrs Little-Pengelly

I thank the Member for his supplementary question. We want to ensure that there is adequate funding for community groups across all areas, including those in the equality space that work with older people, younger people, people with disabilities and many more. It is important that they are properly funded and that they know well in advance what funding they will get for the coming year. There is no doubt that the three-year Budget will help with that process. As the Member is, no doubt, aware, however, there is a particular issue with the ending of the Shared Prosperity Fund and its transition into the local growth fund. I have corresponded with and spoken directly to the Finance Minister on that issue. I have worked with a number of groups throughout Northern Ireland that are very concerned about that transition. We are actively looking at options to support those groups. The fact that we, as an Executive, had such late notice of the replacement of that funding with the local growth fund is unacceptable, as is the impact of that on employees in the organisations that are still in a position of uncertainty.

Ms Ní Chuilín

Can the deputy First Minister confirm that the budget figure that she read out will not impact on the work that the Equality Commission does, particularly for vulnerable groups, on equality, inclusion and, indeed, respect?

Mrs Little-Pengelly

I thank the Member for her supplementary question. From speaking to groups, including our arm's-length bodies, we know that they could always do more with more — there is no doubt about that — and, indeed, we have to make difficult decisions in order to balance that with the budget that we are allocated. I have no doubt that the Equality Commission wants to do more and that it could do more if it had a bigger budget, but it has a sizeable budget of almost £5 million. In this case, that budget is very much for the commission itself, because the groups on the ground are funded through a range of Departments, agencies, councils etc. We always want to work in a collaborative way to ensure, as far as possible, that those groups get sufficient funding and, as I said, sufficient notice of the funding that they will get; hopefully, the three-year Budget process will really help with that.

Mr Clarke

Has any assessment been done of what the Equality Commission spends its budget on and, in particular, how much it has spent on the legal cases that it has taken recently?

Mrs Little-Pengelly

I thank the Member for his question. The Equality Commission has operational independence from the Executive Office. There is, of course, concern among many people out there about the commission's prioritising. Just this week, we have seen further action being launched in relation to the Supreme Court judgement on the definition of "sex" and the biological definition of "man" and "woman". I do not believe that that is necessary expenditure; however, the commission is operationally independent, and that is a decision that it can make. However, the question is about whether it should make that decision. Should it prioritise it? I advise the Member that the commission has a full-time equivalent staff cohort of just over 100 and is carrying a significant number of vacancies. Just under 50 staff are in place. That is not uncommon across the system, because we are carrying a significant number of vacancies. Part of that is because of the challenges within our budget and trying to ensure efficiency across our system.

Mr Gaston

Does the deputy First Minister agree that it is a disgrace that the Equality Commission has enough money to take an action against the Supreme Court to try to get men into girls' bathrooms? Does that not suggest that her Department is giving the commission far too much money if it can waste it on a futile challenge such as that?

Mrs Little-Pengelly

That aligns with my answers to the substantive and supplementary questions. At this difficult time of fiscal constraint, people should be looking at what they are doing and making decisions that are based on what best serves people. I do not believe that that legal action is necessary at all. It is more legal action, more cost and more delay, but on what? It is about common sense, and common sense must prevail. I think that most people find the issue to be completely bonkers, not because they want to hate on anyone but because it is common sense that the definition of a man or a woman is related to biological sex. More important is the reality that there should be, and must be, safe spaces and female-only spaces, be they in changing rooms, toilets or places of sanctuary. It is also about fairness. We have seen that play out in sport. As a woman, I never consented to my rights being diminished by that definition being changed or by evolving attempts to change it. However, what we see now is an Equality Commission that is arguing that to reset that to a common-sense definition of biological male or female is somehow a diminution of somebody else's rights. That is wrong. It is absolutely bonkers; we need to get back to common sense and to stop wasting money on that type of thing.