, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
One of the things that we heard from Wales Fiscal Analysis this morning was that they would find it useful if the things that you've got in the annex were moved into the main body of the report with regard to the impact on the block grant and tracking that…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
Thank you. You published your Welsh tax forecast to coincide with the Welsh Government's draft budget, three weeks after the UK autumn budget. Were there any challenges in adhering to those timescales and, if so, what were they?
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
Thank you very much—[Interruption.] Yes, certainly.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
Rhianon.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
Mike, did you want to—?
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
Excellent, thank you. The OBR's UK growth forecast has a more positive outlook than the Bank of England's. Can you explain the key differences in the methodologies to account for this, and how does this impact on Welsh tax forecasts?
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
That's fine. Thank you very much. And, yes, modern technology allows us to do this, and, with some of the heavy rain we've had, I think other witnesses have had to come in online as well, so it's been quite handy to be able to do this hybrid. We've got a few…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
And David.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
And then Andy.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
We're here with members of the Office for Budget Responsibility. I'd like to start off with welcoming you here, and if you could state your names and roles for the record, please. Richard.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 5
A warm welcome back to the next session of the Finance Committee, and we are still undertaking scrutiny of the Welsh Government draft budget. We have a session now.
, Finance Committee
Motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to resolve to exclude the public from items 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12
Under Standing Order 17.42, I propose that this committee resolves to exclude the public from items 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Is everybody happy with that? Great. We'll be therefore going into private now, and we'll be back for our next public session at 13:15…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
So, thank you so much for your time. As I said at the beginning, there will be a transcript for you to check for accuracy. There might be one or two questions that we didn't quite cover off. If we feel that we could really do with your input on that…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Thank you very much for your time this morning—we've gone into the afternoon.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Thank you very much.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Thank you, Mike. Rhianon.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
I don’t know if you’ve got anything to add to that, Victoria.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Victoria, yes.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Who would like to go first?
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Oh, yes.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Excellent. Thank you. Right, we'll move on to Mike.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
And going back with homelessness, then, if you don't have the intervention before they're made homeless, it then means people become homeless, which then puts an added pressure on all the local services, and it just keeps going round and round. Whereas that…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
And then the investment in those front-line people. If it's not clear on where that money—. It's all well and good spending on schemes, but schemes need people to run them, and it's the investment in those people—especially in some of the schemes in some of…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
Victoria.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2023-24: Evidence session 4
We'll continue with Luke, because you started talking about it, but obviously, we welcome comments from the others.
