Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 14 November 2018.
Well, Llywydd, the Member is wrong in his interpretation of the letter that I sent to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Luckily enough, I have a copy of it in front of me, in which I said to her,
'I want to signal now that I will be seeking an increase in the Welsh Government's annual and aggregate borrowing limits as we move into the next spending review in order that we can deliver our investment priorities for Wales'.
That includes the M4, but it is not a letter about the M4, which is what he said in his supplementary question. It is a letter about the totality of our borrowing requirement and the totality of the investment priorities for Wales. That was my objection to what was said in the Chancellor's speech—that he attempted to hypothecate any increase in our borrowing requirement for a particular purpose. That is quite outside the statement of funding priorities, and we look for an increase in our borrowing limit because of the many investment priorities very often advocated on the Member's own benches that are important here in Wales.