5. What discussions has the Minister had with the UK Government regarding any additional funding that will be provided to the Welsh Government to deal with damage caused by storms Ciara and Dennis? OAQ55204

I am in regular contact with UK Treasury Ministers about securing the additional funding we need to respond to the unprecedented impact across Wales of the recent storms.

Thank you for that answer, Minister, and thank you for the submission that you made to the UK Government regarding the budget. You made a number of important points regarding regional and national inequalities across the UK. You talked about welfare reform and the need for greater co-operation between the UK and Welsh Governments to deliver better social care in the future.

Could I, however, focus my question on the spending pressures from recent storms? In the preliminary information I've received both from Merthyr Tydfil and Caerphilly county borough councils, I can see that there is a need for significant spend in the constituency in order to overcome the impact of the storms, and I know from contributions from colleagues in the Chamber today that this is also true in other areas. Given the previous answers that you gave to other Members this afternoon, I think I'm right in assuming that you've not yet heard anything from today's budget that shows that the UK Government will finally actually step up to the mark and help us to invest in meeting both those current spending pressures and the future challenges facing Wales. Would you agree with me that, given the spending announcements from today's budget, this does finally confirm what we've always known, and that is that the last 10 years of Tory austerity and the hardship that that has brought to many of my constituents was always a policy of choice and not of necessity?

Finally, Minister, like me, do you wonder how the party of fiscal responsibility has managed to borrow £800 billion in the last nine years, almost double what Labour ever borrowed in its 33 years in Government?   

I thank Dawn Bowden for raising that particular issue, and allowing me the opportunity again to stress that austerity isn't over with this UK Government budget, and it's very much alive and well. The UK Government has ensured that our budget for next year is still only marginally higher than it was a decade ago. And I think that that does demonstrate that we are still facing some challenges as Welsh Government, but those challenges absolutely feed, then, into local government, and local government has been really keen to impress upon us that one better year of funding, which we've been able to provide them with, doesn't make up for a decade of austerity.