Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 19 February 2019.
Well, Llywydd, the problem that the Member points to is one that I agree we have to do our best to address and to solve. What I have said is that I want the case for the devolution of the administration of welfare benefits to be properly and thoroughly considered. I want us to take the advice of Assembly committees in that regard, and I intend to explore in the next week or so, with the Welsh Centre for Public Policy, whether this is a job that they could do on our behalf.
But I don't think that it is something that we can immediately sign up to until we are properly aware of what the complexities would be and what the costs would be. Scotland spent £16 million in taking on this responsibility. Now, it may be that when we investigate it, that would be £16 million that is well spent, and I'm absolutely open to that being the conclusion, but we don't have £16 million sitting doing nothing in the Welsh Government's budget, or anything like that. So, if we take on new responsibilities, we'd have to be properly funded to do them, and the exploration that I want to see happen will look at that and the other cases that exist for the devolution of administration of welfare benefits.