3. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance: The Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan Mid-point Review 2018

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:09 pm on 1 May 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:09, 1 May 2018

Thank you very much. Let me first of all identify a small number of points where I would not agree with what the Member has said. He said that the Welsh Government's hands are tied. Our hands are not as completely tied as they once were, very largely due to the work carried out by my predecessor, Jane Hutt, in setting off down the road of innovative ways of adding to the conventional capital that is available to us. And I tried to set some of those out in the way that we have supported borrowing that was capable of being undertaken by housing associations and local councils and in the way that we have used sources of funding outside the Welsh block. Of course, the big context is set by the block in the way that Neil Hamilton said. Let me say to him: austerity isn't an avenue, it's a dead end. That's what the continual pushing into the distance of the day when we will finally see it come to a conclusion demonstrates.

I've not argued at all, Dirprwy Lywydd, this afternoon, for infinite spending, but the clue is in the term, isn't it—'capital' investment? Capital spending is not just money poured down the drain, it is the money that we use to create the conditions in which we get a greater return as a result of the investment than we would have if we hadn't made it. And that's how we manage—and I agree with what he said here—to try and raise the tax base in Wales, to try and make sure that our economy is able to do better. What do businesses coming into Wales expect to see? They expect to see the sort of infrastructure that they know public spending will support the investment that they are willing to make. And so I don't agree with him that capital investment is somehow something that we should be sceptical about. We invest today in order to succeed tomorrow, and the success we have tomorrow more than pays back the investment that we make in order to get there.

I thank him for what he said at the end about broadband access. He's seen that there's over £30 million in today's announcement of additional investment over the next three years in broadband access. My understanding, but you'd hear much more of it from my colleague who has responsibility for it, is that that money will, in part at least, be spent in those parts of Wales where the broadband challenge is at its greatest and to enable us to accelerate the infrastructure that we need in digital technologies, again because businesses in that part of Wales—their future and their growth depends on it.