8. Will the First Minister make a statement on the appropriate magnitude of borrowing for the Welsh Government in the UK context? OAQ(5)0567(FM)

I was just readjusting myself, there, to where the Member is now sitting. Well, we will maximise all the tools available to support the economy and public services in Wales, including making best use of the £1 billion of borrowing powers secured through the new fiscal framework.

First Minister, whether the question is £1 billion or £1.5 billion of borrowing for Wales, or £500 billion of borrowing for the UK, your answer seems to be the same: ‘Let’s borrow; it’s cheap.’ There seems to be less consideration to how we would pay that money back or what would happen if interest rates go up. Do you seriously believe it’s appropriate for the UK to borrow 300 times as much as Wales? And if so, is your position any more credible than Jeremy Corbyn’s?

The UK has far more fiscal tools available to it than the Welsh Government in terms of the way in which it can borrow and in terms of the taxation policies available to it. We know that your party—or the party that you sit on that side of the Chamber with—will not rule out a rise in income tax. I appreciate that honesty, but I think it’s right to say that even the Conservative Party is considering increasing income taxes in the future in order to provide more money for the public purse. They’ve been asked several times to rule it out, and several times that has not been ruled out. The point is this: borrowing for infrastructure investment is important. It must be prudent—I take that point—and it must be affordable. But what is affordable for the UK is many times more than what is affordable for Wales because of the tools at the UK’s disposal and its ability to raise money. It was done in the 1940s, when the situation was far, far worse than this. The infrastructure was rebuilt. The UK got back on its feet into the 1950s. If it could be done in the 1940s, when borrowing rates were higher and the situation much worse, then why is it so unreasonable to say that it can’t be done now?