Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 20 November 2019.
Thank you to Dawn Bowden for raising this issue and for highlighting some of the excellent initiatives and excellent investments that Welsh Government is making in the community that she represents. I'm really pleased to see that she's had the opportunity to visit so many of them. For example, Elite Paper Solutions, I think, is really exciting in terms of what's possible through our Better Jobs Closer to Home approach, and I want to see much more of that kind of work being done to support our procurement across Wales as much as anything else.
I think it is important to recognise that the recent spending round doesn't turn the page on austerity, as the UK Government has suggested. Our budget for 2021 will be 2 per cent lower, or £300 million less, than in real terms in 2010-11. But, that doesn't mean for a second that we're not ambitious for Wales and ambitious for the Valleys in terms of what can be achieved. So, I hope that, when we are able to publish the draft budget following the election, there'll be opportunities to recognise further investment that we'll be making in the community that Dawn Bowden represents.