UUP call for policing test period
The Ulster Unionist Party is calling for a five-year financial testing period before policing and justice powers are devolved to Stormont.
In a newly published document, Putting Things Right, the party calls for the implementation of measures to tackle the economic downturn.
The paper includes a call for a new assembly budget review committee.
The UUP also accuses Sinn Fein and the DUP of engaging in an axis of denial over the financial crisis facing NI.
The party questions the ability of the two parties to negotiate a financial package to underpin the transfer of policing and justice powers.
It said the potential shortfalls in the financing of these powers should be tested over five years in a programme where powers are rolled out and financial pitfalls are tested.
Only then, it said, should the powers be fully transferred.
The party also called for devolved assemblies to have more say in banking policy given that the Treasury has had to bail out some banks.
It said Stormont needed to urgently reprioritise the programme for government.
