4. Statement by the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd: Future Outlook for Public Spending in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:57 pm on 16 July 2019.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 4:57, 16 July 2019

I thank Llyr Gruffydd for those comments. The first point he made was: are we taking the fight to the UK Government? Well, yes, I took the fight to the Prime Minister just last week. I was representing Welsh Government on the EUExTP meeting, which is the European Union exit and trade preparedness committee, which is a sub-committee of the UK Cabinet, which Welsh Government and the devolved administrations have the ability to go along to. So, I made the points at those meetings that, actually, we have not had a conversation yet in terms of what funding might be forthcoming for Wales in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit. I made the point that it is extremely unsatisfactory that we are facing the genuine prospect of a 'no deal' Brexit without having had those conversations or any certainty from the UK Government there. So, the UK Government is not confused about Welsh Government's position in those respects.

Of course, we always attend these meetings and make the case for Wales across the piece. The shared prosperity fund, for example, I've taken that case up again with James Brokenshire after the unanimous vote that we had here in the Assembly where we all supported the motion, which was jointly tabled by three of our parties, which said that we didn't want a penny less, that we had to make sure that the shared prosperity fund wasn't an opportunity to roll back on the devolution settlement, and that decisions on that fund should be made here in Wales. Some work has gone on over the last 18 months that would set out very clearly what Welsh Government's priorities would be for the future of regional funding, so we would be looking at multi-year frameworks, we'd be looking at the greater opportunity for local communities to have a say in the direction of the decisions that are made around those regional funds. So, we've been very clear in the documents that we've published and the work that Huw Irranca-Davies has been undertaking in the group that is looking at the future of regional funding in Wales as well.

In terms of Boris Johnson's comments, he said that we wouldn't have less money, so we welcome that, but he also said then that regional funding in Wales post Brexit would benefit from Conservative influence in terms of value for money. Well, of course, the Public Accounts Committee has looked at Conservative influence and value for money, and has looked at one of the funds that it has administered locally, and found that there were no real outcomes to that funding. So, I don't think that we can be taking lessons from the Conservatives on value-for-money issues.

The climate emergency issue is very live and very real for all of us. We're having these discussions now, as we start to consider the preparations of our next budget. But let's not imagine that good work hasn't been going on in this area for years. So, by the end of this current Government term, we expect to have nearly £70 million invested in public sector energy projects, with an expected £650 million in cash savings on energy, and to reduce emissions by 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of those assets. We're already considering carbon impact when allocating capital funding, and this was a key factor, for example, when we invested £50 million to develop a new rail station in Llanwern, together with extensive park-and-ride facilities and line improvements. And as part of our midpoint review of the Wales infrastructure investment plan, we've provided £60 million over three years for the NHS all-Wales capital programme, including supporting the replacement of the ambulance fleet with more modern, lower carbon models. So, it's not as if we just suddenly woke up one day and realised the environment was important. This has been at the heart of all of this Government's work, and we do recognise that within the context of emergency we need to increase our ambitions and move further forward there.

The preventative agenda—we worked really closely with the well-being of future generations commissioner to agree a definition of 'prevention', which is one that we're using across Government now, and, clearly, we want to see more investment in prevention, because obviously it has savings in the longer term, but that doesn't mean, of course, that we don't have the acute end to meet as well. Good work is going on with the future generations commissioner's office in terms of developing that journey checker that we've been talking about, which shows how we will better embed the future generations Act in all of our budget-making and decision-making processes. And some mention has been made earlier on today about the future generations commissioner's report, where she suggested £1 billion of funding for what she would see as priorities for the next budget. Now, that's a really useful contribution to the discussion, and I look forward to meeting with her to discuss that further. I think that the challenge to the commissioner, and the same challenge I make to all Members and everyone else I have discussions with regarding the budget, is if we're asking for additional funding in one place, then we have to have an understanding as to where we disinvest in response to that. And I'm also keen to understand the exact details of the carbon emissions that we would expect to be saving as a result of those measures in the 10-point plan that the commissioner produced, but I'm looking forward to having those more detailed discussions with her shortly.