2. Will the First Minister provide an update on how the Welsh Government’s annual budget supports the delivery of public services in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney? OAQ54203

Llywydd, the Welsh Government supports public services in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney through a series of budget measures: the annual revenue support grant, the pooled approach to business rates, and specific grants across a range of responsibilities. The Minister for Housing and Local Government has recently announced a package of further support for Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. It's clear to me that the Welsh Government continues to deliver on its promises for my constituents, and yet we also know that far more could be achieved had we not suffered a decade of Tory cuts to our budgets. Yet, in recent weeks, we've heard those competing to be the next Tory leader suggest a series of spending commitments around infrastructure, public services, policing, and tax cuts for the wealthy. Can the First Minister tell us if any of these funding promises from the Tory magic money tree has yet been promised to Wales? And isn't it now clear to everyone that those Tory cuts were, and always have been, a matter of political choice, and not an economic necessity?

Well, Llywydd, I entirely agree with what Dawn Bowden said at the end of that question. It's the biggest deceit in politics, the claim that there is no alternative, because there is always an alternative in politics, and there was an alternative available to Governments back in 2010. The Government of the time chose the path of austerity. We were promised, as you'll remember, that the sunny uplands would be restored to us by 2015. Now we're told it will be 2025—fully a decade later—before we see any benefit. And Dawn Bowden is right as well, Llywydd, isn't she, that we have had a 40-year project of neoliberalism to shift the economy away from working people, and inequality has risen year on year as a result. It's astonishing, it's surely astonishing, that a decade of austerity should culminate in tax cuts for the wealthy. Where is the sense that we were promised, that we were all in this together, that everybody was forced to share the burden? At the end of it, when the burden has been very unfairly shared, we see the rewards are to be as unfairly shared as well.

To answer Dawn Bowden's question directly, of course, there's been no money promised to Wales. Instead, what we have seen is one of the two contenders in the Tory leadership race saying that the money we do get will now be controlled by London, and by the Conservative Party, rather than this institution and people who elected this institution here in Wales. 

First Minister, Merthyr Tydfil council used £560,000 of its reserves last year to help plug the deficit in its budget, mainly caused by the enormous pressure on its social services due to helping children in care. The Wales Audit Office raised concerns about this and warned that the authority should not keep raiding its reserves. First Minister, do you regret telling local authorities when you were finance Minister in 2017—and its your quote now:

'Local authorities will need to look at their reserves as well as to see if they can squeeze some money out', and do you now accept that the current difficulties faced by Merthyr Tydfil council are the direct result of your cuts to local government? And please stop blaming London. 

Well, Llywydd, I'm afraid nothing that we've just heard bears examination. The problems experienced in local authorities in Wales are not the result of decisions made in this National Assembly. They are the result of a year-on-year-on-year reduction in our budgets that are made by his Government, by the deliberate decisions that his Government makes, and it's no surprise to anybody to see those decisions creating the difficulties that they do for public services here in Wales. 

Merthyr borough council received amongst the largest uplifts in funding of any council in Wales last year. This Government is responding to the advice that that council has received from the Wales Audit Office. It is very serious advice, Llywydd. It points to that council's real difficulties in managing the services for which it has responsibility. We will use the powers we have in order to give them further assistance. But nobody should be in any doubt about the scale and the depth of the difficulties that that council faces.