Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws will hold talks with Owen Paterson over the next few days to thrash out what cuts must be made to Northern Ireland’s funding.

Liberal Democrat Mr Law announced yesterday that Stormont’s politicians can chose to defer the province’s “share of the savings” that must be made to help plug the £163bn deficit in UK coffers.

But that would leave the Assembly facing a double debt whammy next year as it would have to pay that amount back in the new financial year on top of the next set of savings.

Over the next few days Mr Laws will meet every Secretary of State to thrash out the exact amount they will have to slice off their budgets.

For Northern Ireland that means reviewing the spending allocated to the Assembly and the total to be found will be announced on Monday.

Treasury officials said the option to defer cuts was being given as MLAs had already voted through spending plans for this financial year.

But savings identified in the next spending review would be added on to the amount deferred and would have to be repaid during 2011/12.

Mr Laws said: “The devolved administrations will be given the option of deferring their fair contributions to this year’s savings until next year, in recognition of the fact that the devolved legislatures have already approved spending plans for the current year. But these savings will still be made.”