Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 26 November 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:51, 26 November 2019

Well, Llywydd, in his first question to me this afternoon, the leader of Plaid Cymru criticised the Labour manifesto for saying something different on policing to 2017 and, in his second question, he criticised the manifesto for saying the same as it did in 2017. The truth of the matter is that we rewrite our manifesto where there are new things that we have to take into account and, where there are outstanding commitments that we want to progress, then of course we repeat them there.

A UK Labour Government, Llywydd, will transform the funding available to Wales. There will be £3.4 billion more available to invest in the running of public services here in Wales than we have had under the current Government, remembering, Llywydd, that, if the resources available to us had simply gone up in line with the growth of the economy, we would already be £4 billion better off than we are today. Labour's manifesto fills that gap and will allow public services in Wales and people who rely on them to have the sort of services that they deserve. And, as far as public expenditure on investment is concerned, our manifesto makes an explicit commitment to the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon—£1.3 billion of capital investment there. It makes a specific commitment to advancing the Wylfa project on the island of Anglesey—a £20 billion investment in the Welsh economy. It gives us a share in the great new programmes of transformation that a Labour Government will bring about and, here in Wales, we will see not just revenue to allow us to reinvest in our public services, but an ability to reconstruct the infrastructure that a successful economy allows on a scale that has been entirely missing over the last 10 years. And people in Wales who want to see that happen should be voting for it on 12 December.