Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:15 pm on 5 July 2017.
I thank him for that answer. At the heart of the question of resilience, as we’ve just been discussing, is the question of well-being and productivity of the workforce, the ability to recruit and retain talent, and, at the heart of that, is the question of pay. So, does he join me in deploring the suppression of public sector pay by the UK Government and the impact that has on the Welsh Government’s capacity to finance in other parts of the public services in Wales the sorts of pay settlements we would want and need? Does he agree with me that the UK Government needs to move beyond choreographed briefings by Cabinet Ministers about this issue to genuinely relenting on the question of public sector pay austerity? And does he join me in hoping that the talents, energy, and passion of Plaid Cymru can be directed to supporting the Welsh Government’s pressure on the UK Government, rather than setting up the kind of dividing lines we saw in the Chamber yesterday?