<p>Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople</p>

Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 29 June 2016.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:45, 29 June 2016

Again, I thank Nick Ramsay for those two important points. Members here will know that my predecessor in this post, Jane Hutt, after a great deal of negotiation, succeeded in obtaining an agreement to a funding floor from the Treasury for the length of the current comprehensive spending review period. In the fiscal framework negotiations we will be arguing hard for making sure that that funding floor is made permanent. It needs to be a permanent part of that framework and the landscape that it provides here in Wales and that is one of the ways in which our negotiations will need to go beyond the position established in Scotland. However, as Nick Ramsay went on to say, the uncertainties created by last week’s vote—not simply in relation to our United Kingdom relationship with Europe but relationships within the United Kingdom as well—mean that the whole Barnett formula has to be revised. The First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister on 27 June and made it very clear in that letter that the time is now to examine and re-examine the Barnett formula. The time is surely right, he, said to introduce a needs-based formula in Wales so that a United Kingdom outside the European Union is seen by its citizens as fairly recognising their needs and circumstances. And I think that is absolutely correct.