I really welcome the opportunity today to look ahead as we consider how best to stabilise our economy and public services and reconstruct our society on a new basis, and I'm really pleased to have had this early opportunity to hear ideas that you know I will consider very seriously, and I know that we also share many of the same goals in securing Wales's recovery from this pandemic, and the digital survey conducted by the Finance Committee is a very important contribution to that debate.

Before I outline the considerations that are shaping our plans, we should acknowledge the extraordinarily difficult circumstances that we face and the scale of the financial challenge as we look ahead. We're in the deepest recession in living memory, with the labour market yet to see the worst impacts once the UK Government's furlough scheme comes to an end. It's now well evidenced that the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact. The scarring from unemployment alone could impact young people, the lowest paid, disabled people and people from BAME backgrounds worst.

We face the UK leaving the EU without a comprehensive free trade deal, which would be deeply damaging in normal circumstances, and anything less than a deal will compound pandemic damage and weaken public finances. We must also continue to respond to the climate emergency and the decline in biodiversity. The outlook for public finances reflects this context and, as Rhianon Passmore has said, the OBR's new fiscal sustainability report, published just yesterday, provides a really sobering reminder of the economic and fiscal challenges that we face. The report showed the UK is on track to record the largest decline in annual GDP and the highest public sector net borrowing in peacetime in at least 300 years. Rhianon Passmore described the situation as 'grim', and I wouldn't disagree with her on that.

While the Chancellor's statement last week included some welcome announcements, it didn't provide the significant boost for public services that we were hoping for, or the fiscal tools that we urgently need. Robust health, social care and local government services will be absolutely critical to a sustained recovery and this is a theme that is reflected in the Finance Committee's digital engagement and our own national survey. And, of course, Lynne Neagle set out extremely clearly the impact that the crisis has had on mental health, and those mental health services will need to be there for people as we come out of the crisis.

In terms of funding this year, I really have to set the record straight, and the claim that Wales has received an extra £500 million from the measures announced by the Chancellor last week is nothing short of misleading. The reality is that we will receive only £12.5 million in new revenue consequentials as a direct result of the measures announced in the economic update, and no additional capital funding. We have so far received around £2.8 billion in consequential funding from the UK Government, with a large part already committed as part of our initial response to the pandemic. We simply do not have enough money to do all of the things that we would like to do or even all the things that we'd planned to do. The scale of the financial challenge that we are facing will be a key issue for discussion at the finance Ministers' quadrilateral in the coming week, and I will also be pressing for clarity on the UK Government's plans for the long-promised comprehensive spending review.

In anticipation that we will not know our settlement for 2021-22 until late autumn, we have already signalled that it may be possible that we will not be able to publish our own budget until the end of the next term. I will write to the chair of the Finance Committee after the quadrilateral meeting to update on the consequentials we have received since the supplementary budget was tabled.

Turning to our early budget preparations, we are committed to building a prosperous Wales out of this pandemic. The Counsel General is bringing together our strategy for reconstruction and our preparations will align with this work, and you will have seen that the joint statement that was published yesterday by myself and the Counsel General set out the principles that will be guiding us. 

We'll be building on the foundation established when we set our plans for 2021 for a more equal, prosperous and greener Wales. We want to deliver a green recovery that will sustain Wales into the future, building on the £140 million capital package in decarbonisation and protecting our wonderful environment. And I know that this is a concern that the Chair of the Finance Committee has recognised this afternoon, and it's also been recognised very much by the people who took part in the committee's engagement.

I want us to find new ways of delivering capital investment in infrastructure to create jobs, building on our ambitious, Wales-wide investment plans, and I've heard this afternoon what Nick Ramsay has said in regard to some of those issues. My early listening to stakeholders more widely says that they want to see us continuing to focus on housing, and building on the £2 billion that we've already invested over this Assembly—over this Senedd term—on good quality, affordable housing, which is already invested in new social housing, alongside delivering the necessary energy efficiency retrofits within existing housing stock. 

I liked Mike Hedges's warning against making a budget for last year, and I think that so much has changed just in the past few months, hasn't it? The changes just since our budget just four months ago I think bear that out. Our economic resilience fund has already supported more than 9,000 businesses, and it's safeguarding over 77,000 employees' jobs. And I think that what I hear this afternoon is that colleagues want us to move this up into a new gear, with a focus on helping businesses, and particularly those in low carbon sectors, those that support our homegrown companies, in order to create and safeguard jobs, and you want to see a really strong focus on skills and employability, and you want to see us do everything that we possibly can to give young people the best possible chance.

As part of our engagement plans, we also will continue to ensure that there's a national conversation, which the Counsel General has already started, and that will help us inform the hard choices that we will no doubt have to make. It's already clear that we must go beyond business as usual and focus on change and innovation. Coronavirus has changed our world, and, at the end of the EU transition period, that will add to the upheaval. But we have an opportunity that is there for us to shape a recovery that is aligned to our values. And Rhun ap Iorwerth talked about the way in which the pandemic has changed the way in which we value things, and I'm really pleased that Welsh Government is a member of the network of well-being budgeting nations, and we're also seeking to influence the UK Government's work to review the UK Treasury's Green Book, and we want to see more of a focus on how we value—how we put value on social outcomes and environmental outcomes there. 

So, I'll be considering the points made today in shaping our plans, and will be really pleased to update Members on our progress in the autumn. Alun Davies referred to the decision-making process, and very shortly I look forward to launching a consultation on a potential finance Bill on tax legislation, which could be taken forward in the next Senedd, and I know that that's something that the Finance Committee has also expressed a particular interest in. Thank you.