10. Debate: The Draft Budget 2019-20

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 8:06 pm on 4 December 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 8:06, 4 December 2018

Let me turn, if I could, Llywydd, to what the spokespeople of individual parties said. I'm grateful to Rhun ap Iorwerth for the work that we continue to do together on the deal that was struck between the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru. I'm glad to be able to make some further investments on that joint agenda today. Llyr focused on local government, and other speakers did too. I think I would describe £140 million more for local government as a bit more than a tweak in their budget, although I recognise, of course, that there are very real pressures in our local authorities in the ninth year of sustained austerity. 

Jane Hutt pointed to the Cambridge university work that said, on the day that my colleague Alun Davies laid the provisional settlement, that we have taken a very different approach here in Wales in looking to protect local government from the worst of the impacts of austerity. 

I should turn to what Darren Millar said. I'm afraid it was a contribution riven with contributions that were wide of the factual mark. I provided figures—[Interruption.] I provided figures to his colleague Nick Ramsay—as in, bring back Nick Ramsay—that showed that, in real terms, our budget in 2010-11 was £17,169 million and our budget in real terms next year will be £16,357 million. That's why I said in my opening remarks that the budget available to this budget is £850 million less than it would have been if our budget had simply kept the—