, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
I want to move on to some questions about tax policy. We've got about five minutes left. I'll come on to some questions from Mike Hedges on tax policy.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
David, you go first and then Guto.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
And obviously that’s a concern to local government, and I understand that you haven’t done any analysis on that, but anything that you might do in the future would be of interest to this committee. David, did you want to come in on that?
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
I suppose it’s the variation in the formula that’s an average rather than a top and a bottom.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Diolch. Diolch, Mike. I'll bring Sam in now.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
David.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Guto.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
David, sorry, yes. Sorry.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Mike.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Diolch yn fawr. Thank you. At that point, I'll bring Mike Hedges in. So, if we can—. There we are. Mike.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Thanks, Guto. David, sorry, I cut across there—you were in mid flow.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Hang on. Can I ask Guto: do you just want to comment on that particular bit?
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
And then it adds into the conversation around whether or not it should be a legislative process that allows amendments to the budget through the process, rather than, as you say, a more final draft and scrutiny of that draft. So, yes, there are quite a few…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
David.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
And that will help, I'm assuming, the stakeholders and everybody—yourselves, but also everybody who’s affected by this, the third sector and all the rest. Guto.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Thank you. And, Guto, anything to add to that, or David, any thoughts? No. That's great. Thank you very much. So, looking at—. We’ve talked about presentation, but what about timing? On the timing of the publication of the Welsh budget, we were talking just…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Thank you very much for that. Coming back to the—. And that's particularly interesting when it comes to scrutinising the budget, and we had quite a lengthy discussion with the Cabinet Secretary when he was giving evidence to us around presentation, and we've…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
David, maybe you could comment on that and maybe—. You've been commenting a bit about the Scottish Government experience as well, so maybe if you could draw that into it as well.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
So, what challenges does that have for scrutiny? I'll bring David in after that, if I can.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
We'll dive into questions. We always find your sessions very interesting, so we'll try and keep things as tight as we can. We've got you for an hour and we've got a lot of ground to cover. But we'll start with understanding the economic context around the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Fantastic, thank you very much. A warm welcome to you all this morning.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
And then—.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Excellent.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Can we start online with—? If you could introduce yourself and where you've come from. Diolch. David.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session 3
Welcome back to this session. This is our second session this morning on the draft budget. We have our witnesses here this morning. We'll start online.
