2. Statement by the First Minister: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 1 April 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:14, 1 April 2020

I thank Paul Davies for those questions and thank him for joining the coronavirus Cabinet group this morning. My hope is that by having the most recent information available that will assist in the scrutiny of the Government's actions, and I'm very happy to remain in dialogue with the leader of the opposition about how that forum can operate in the way both he and I would like it to continue. 

He is right to say that the Welsh Government has embarked all last week on a series of reviews of existing budgets. I don't myself think it is fair to describe £1.1 billion freed up from other commitments as 'business as usual'. It has involved difficult decisions right across the Government, and that is an exercise that I have warned my Cabinet colleagues we will have to repeat a number of times during the coronavirus crisis.

Last week, we focused on revenue in order to release as much revenue as we could for coronavirus purposes. We will carry out a parallel exercise in relation to capital expenditure across the Welsh Government. Again, the aim being to release capital from programmes that can now not go ahead in the way originally planned, and to be able to reapply that resource to meet the challenges that we face.

The Minister for Finance and Trefnydd intends to complete these first rounds of discussions over the next couple of weeks, and then we will be able to advise the Business Committee on the timetable that we hope to follow in relation to returning to the Assembly to regularise these matters through a first supplementary budget.

Members will have seen, as I said, that £24 million has already been identified for the voluntary and third sector. That is absolutely in recognition of the part that they are playing, as Paul Davies said, in moving to the forefront of the response being made across Wales to the coronavirus outbreak, both the voluntary effort by releasing people for new duties and by strengthening the response they're able to make at community level, and we intend to go on supporting that sector in that work.