Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 19 June 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:42, 19 June 2018

Well, the first thing we have to see is how much money we'll actually get, because there are two important points to make here: first of all, we have been informed that that money, whatever money we get, will be the source of funding to deal with pay increases. So, the lifting of the pay cap will have to be financed through any money that we get via the source that he has mentioned. So, that's the first thing to mention. There's no extra money on top of that. Secondly, of course, it's never the case, is it, that we get a lump sum of money to pay for a particular area, such as health or education? What happens is, of course, as he knows, is that it's delivered via the block grant. What we don't know is that, if we get the increase in health, whether we will then see decreases everywhere else—in local government, in education, in all those areas that are devolved. Now, those, of course, are removed from the figure that he's just mentioned. So, until we know firstly how much money net there will actually be—we know about the £1.2 billion—and until we know, of course, how much money—we've got a fair idea—that the pay deal will cost, we won't know how much money is available to spend. Until those factors are resolved—and nobody is able to do that yet because we don't know what any increases or not in our block grant will be in the autumn—and until we know the definitive net sum of money, it's very difficult to make any commitments at this stage.