Commentary on provisions of Act Section 7: Act to take effect as if it were a Budget Act of the Assembly etc.
Section 7 provides for the authorisations and limits in the Act to have the same effect as if they were contained in a Budget Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly. It also modifies references in other pieces of legislation to the Northern Ireland Estimates which would normally form part of the Assembly’s supply process, including the consideration of the estimates by the Assembly’s committees and the approval of the estimates document by a vote in the Assembly. For those purposes the Estimates document, which was laid before Parliament on 3 July 2023, is deemed equivalent to those Assembly processes. Section 7(3) would require the Northern Ireland Audit Office and the Northern Ireland Public Service Ombudsman to prepare their accounts in accordance with the Estimates laid before Parliament.