, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, what I can say, Llywydd, of course, is that I will have opportunities, as will the First Minister have opportunities, to have conversations with the new Government in Westminster and to speak to them about those issues that are important to us here in…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Llywydd, the figures are only available because of the internal audit processes of the Welsh Government. That's how those figures come to be identified and to be put into the public domain. So, I don't think there's any lack of clarity there. Look, Peter Fox…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Llywydd, the money that is needed to invest in the rail infrastructure in Wales includes HS2 but is beyond it. Our discussions with the current UK Government will not simply look at HS2—we will look at investment that needs to come to Wales to sustain the…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I thank Peter Fox for the question, of course, and look forward to these monthly exchanges that we will have, and look forward to continuing to be able to deal directly with spokespeople from other parties on emerging issues in relation to the budget and to…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I thank the Member for the question and for his opening remarks. The debate about local government funding on the floor of the Senedd has often been pretty circular, hasn't it, with calls for changes to the formula. No local authority in Wales believes that…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I thank Hannah Blythyn for those interesting and relevant points. She will know that the local government funding formula is a data-driven formula—just about 4,000 different data points are used in calculating the distribution of the funding we’re able to…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Llywydd, I will be holding budget bilaterals with all Cabinet Secretaries this week. Discussion with the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government will focus on the funding of all local authorities right across Wales.
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, Llywydd, every budget exercise is an exercise in prioritisation, and this one will be no different, because when you have a fixed sum of money available to you, a decision to spend more money on one subject is inevitably a decision to spend less money…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, Llywydd, I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17 September, setting out our ambitions for Wales and how those might be reflected in the forthcoming budget. I’m very happy to make the substance of that letter available to the Member because it…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, Llywydd, I thank Sioned Williams for those supplementary questions. I agree, of course, that public services in Wales are still vulnerable, and the funding that we have, or the financial situation that we face, remains difficult. We are working closely…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Thank you, Llywydd. The Welsh Government has been able to discuss future funding with the UK Government regularly since 4 July. Repairing the damage that we've seen inflicted over the past 14 years will not be accomplished overnight—a point made clearly by…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes, by all means.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Thank you, Chair. Well, what we’re told by the incoming Government is that we’ll get a one-year settlement in October, and then, in the spring, we will get a three-year [correction: a further two-year] revenue and a four-year capital horizon. So, that’s what…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, fundamentally here, Chair, is the way that the Treasury, over many, many years, has regarded itself as judge and jury in these matters, and the Court of Appeal as well. So, we’ve long argued for a more rules-based system, and a system in which there is…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, I think the First Minister was answering a question specifically in the rail context. So, just to give it a context, she was talking about the way HS2 had been taken out of a comparability factor that we have with the Department of Transport. Again, I…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes. Chair, that's exactly the basis of our confidence. The detail will be part of the budget in October, but all the indications we have are that the amount of money that will come to us will be real. We will have a genuine consequential of the amount that…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I'll ask Andrew in a moment. On the second point, I think we have done some work on that, because that's a decision we could make today. So, you want to have the best information you can as to whether or not it would create mobility across the border. The…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I can say a bit more about that, if you'd like me to. But on Peter's second point—income tax—we will look at it, of course, as we always do. It's an important lever that the Welsh Government has and, in the budget process, there will undoubtedly be a Cabinet…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Chair, first of all, just to say, of course, we've got a significant piece of work going on on landfill disposals tax, and that is partly about making sure that it is raising the money it should be raising. It should be a declining tax, as we know—we want…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I do, particularly on the capital side, where, as I said, the things that I will be looking for from my Cabinet colleagues will be exactly the sort of thing that Mike Hedges has said—those investments that will make a difference, Andrew would probably say.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I think it's a bit more complicated than that description makes it sound. Police were never more productive, apparently, when there were the fewest number of police on the ground. You reduce the number of public servants, and they all look like they're…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I'm certainly not doing that in relation to next year's budget as yet. It would be premature to do that exercise, I think, until we know better what our landscape for next year is. Chair, you asked me a question earlier about the in-year budget, and I said it…
