Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 7 June 2017.
Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I agree totally with the decision yesterday to delay or postpone the financial agreement of this Assembly to that Bill. In asking the question today, I’m in no way blaming you for some of the problems we’ve had around the costings for legislation; I’m purely asking you because, with your role as Cabinet Secretary for finance, you do have an overall view of the way, financially, that this institution and the Welsh Government operates. So, that’s the reason behind it.
You’ve mentioned the Finance Committee. We did consider it this morning, and as a Member of the Finance Committee that considered the Bill’s regulatory impact assessment in the first instance, I share the Chair’s concern that major changes to that assessment were not shared with us until after the Stage 1 report deadline. It transpired that the Bill will cost £8.3 million over the four-year implementation period, rather than saving £4.8 million. So, I hear what you’re saying, Cabinet Secretary, about how this is an art in as many ways as it is a science in terms of predicting costs, and you can’t always be right, but in this particular case with that Bill that we were discussing yesterday, we’re looking at a difference of over £13 million—£13.1 million—between the prediction and what we now can expect that costing to be. So, these aren’t small details that led to the withdrawal of yesterday’s motion. Can I ask you: what input are you having into the timely provision of accurate financial data for new legislation so that these kinds of inaccuracies don’t happen in future?