Mark Drakeford: I have regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues throughout the year to discuss Welsh Government budget matters as well as their individual Ministerial portfolios. This has included dialogue on projected year-end positions and the impact on the overall Welsh Government position.
Mark Drakeford: This will form part of the work involved in refocusing the National Procurement Service and Value Wales, which I announced in September 2017 and which is already under way.
Mark Drakeford: The average increase in band D council tax in Wales this year was 3.3 per cent. In England, it was 4 per cent. We have continued to protect local government from the effects of austerity with another positive settlement for 2018‑19. The setting of budgets and council taxes is a matter for each authority.
Mark Drakeford: Diolch, Llywydd. Despite the pressures on our capital budgets, the Welsh Government will deploy almost £5 billion in support of infrastructure priorities across the whole of Wales, including, for example, building 20,000 affordable homes, delivering twenty-first century schools and protecting the future of our environment.
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that supplementary question. I'm very familiar with the University of South Wales's riverfront presence at the city-centre campus in Newport, which is highly successful, and I'm aware of the other plans to which the Member has made reference. The Welsh Government has a strong record of investing in education in Newport, alongside the city council. We are investing over...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, a decision of that sort would be a policy decision; it would be for my colleague Ken Skates to take the responsibility for that. As the finance Minister, my approach to the M4 relief road has always been to respect the independence of the local public inquiry, not to make allocations directly to the department for the M4 relief road until the outcome of that local public...
Mark Drakeford: Wel, Llywydd, as the Member heard me say, I intend to allow the public inquiry to report before I make allocation decisions. Those allocation decisions would have to be reported to the National Assembly in the normal way and, where they need the approval of the National Assembly, that approval would have to be sought.
Mark Drakeford: Well, may I thank Siân Gwenllian for that question? The Welsh Government is committed to exploring new approaches to deterring tax evasion, artificial avoidance and improving compliance across all the Welsh taxes, including local taxes and the new national taxes, which will be coming into force in April 2018.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, may I thank Siân Gwenllian for the information that she has given to me and the correspondence that we’ve received from both her and Steffan Lewis? I have received advice from my own officials. At present, I believe that the rules are there in order to deal with the situation that Siân Gwenllian has outlined. We are not yet in a position where we can be confident about how...
Mark Drakeford: Well, this is a very important question and thanks to Mike Hedges for raising it. He is right to say that, when income tax responsibilities were devolved to Scotland, there were some teething troubles, which Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs experienced in correctly identifying those individuals who were now to be liable for Scottish rates of income tax. HMRC tell us that they have learnt...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, that is essentially a matter for the Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for the health service, but I am familiar enough with that field to know that he will have very direct ways in which, through his contacts with chairs, and then with chief executives, he will be keeping a direct track on the way in which the money that we are able to provide for the health service in...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I am familiar with the point that the Member makes, and in the process of creating the budget for this year, we have given more detail on a lower level than previously in the second phase of the new process. And where we are able to do more to give greater detail in order to assist the Members to scrutinise as a Government, we are very happy to collaborate with the Finance...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, the Member was careful to make a distinction, but it is an important distinction, between the proportion of the budget that goes to primary care and the absolute investment in primary care, because the absolute investment in primary care has gone up over the years, albeit that as a proportion of the total budget it has taken less. Now, I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Health...
Mark Drakeford: Wel, Llywydd, I tried to say earlier it's not my responsibility to have the policy decisions in relation to the M4 relief road. My responsibility is to manage the budget and to make sure that there are finances available to pursue key priorities. In this case, the new M4 is being considered through an independent local inquiry, and until that inquiry reports I will not make direct...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, the way in which costs for the M4 relief road are presented to the Assembly are entirely in line with the conventions that are used across Governments in reporting such sums. So, there's nothing unusual in the fact that we report the sums in current prices, rather than in prices as they may be later on. What I can report to Members is this: where there is a need for funds for...
Mark Drakeford: I don't think it's possible to separate the two issues in quite that way, Llywydd, because the costs will be contingent upon the conclusions that the inquiry comes to. So, I don't think it's possible to separate matters in quite that way. Let me say in general to the Member that of course I share his concerns always that spending plans right across the Welsh Government are implemented in the...
Mark Drakeford: Well, I understand the point the Member makes, and hypothecation in the sense that people can see what they get for what they pay does have an influence on public acceptability. He will know that successive Chancellors at the UK level have always had antipathy to hypothecation in that way, but where I think the Member is right is that, in the scheme that Professor Gerry Holtham has put...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, it was Marx who said, 'The older I get, the older I want to be'—but, of course, that was Groucho Marx rather than Karl Marx. The Member is absolutely right when he says that the national insurance fund became a fiction in around 1957, when the Macmillan Government of the time decided to dip into it and to pay for current expenditure out of the receipts that had built up in...
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, can I thank the Member for his questions this afternoon? When we published our shortlist of potential taxes under the Wales Act 2014, it was exactly in order to generate a debate about the way in which these potential new powers for Wales could be used for important purposes that matter to people in Wales in the future. Some of the issues that the Member has raised this...
Mark Drakeford: I thank the Member for that question. The budget allocation for the health and social services portfolio next year stands at record levels, with £7.3 billion-worth of revenue and £294 million in capital.
