The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Rebecca Evans, amendment 2 in the name of Caroline Jones, amendment 3 in the name of Gareth Bennett, and amendment 4 in the name of Neil McEvoy. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected.

The next item on our agenda is the Welsh Conservatives debate on value for money for taxpayers, and I call on Angela Burns to move the motion. Angela Burns.

Motion NDM7404 Darren Millar

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes that successful management of taxpayers’ money depends on clear objectives, good governance and effective scrutiny.

2. Regrets that in excess of £1 billion has been wasted by successive Welsh Governments on defunct policies, abandoned projects and overspending against budgets since 2010.

3. Further regrets that potentially good Welsh policies have been allowed to wither due to a lack of buy-in and short-term decision-making.

4. Calls upon the Welsh Government to establish a cross-departmental office at the heart of government to drive a culture change, challenge decision making and ensure the delivery of value for money for taxpayers.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. The motion tabled by the Welsh Conservatives today is very clear: do not waste the taxpayers' money. And the motion is clear because the Welsh Conservatives are the party that understands the true value of the taxpayers' money—money the people of Wales and the United Kingdom have worked hard to make—the graft it takes and the hope it gives for a decent way of life. We want our taxes to pay for a good health and social care system, a transformative education system and decent housing for those who need shelter. We want our taxes to help build a thriving economy, to deliver the infrastructure projects we need and to support cultural and societal growth. The taxpayer's pound is a precious commodity, and one no Government should take for granted, yet this Government, the Welsh Labour Government, have become ever more careless about that precious commodity, the taxpayer's pound. 

The evidence is clear and unambiguous: over £1 billion has been wasted by successive Welsh Labour Governments in the past decade. It makes no odds whether they're joined at the hip with Plaid Cymru or the Liberal Democrats—the waste goes on and on.

As I will demonstrate during this contribution, too many projects, policies and initiatives struggle—and I'm struggling, sorry, with my autocue here—to define clear objectives or agree outcomes, and even those that do are seldom subjected to the rigorous scrutiny that the use of the taxpayer's pound demands. 

Even worse, Llywydd—even worse—is that so many of the projects with potential—the ones that started as pilots—crash and burn, because, once the initial funding runs out, there's no-one with funds prepared to adopt and carry the project forward. So, this Labour Government is forever reinventing the wheel, like a hamster going round and round, ever busier but with no destination.

I have read endless committee reports, Wales Audit Office reports, health board reports, external organisation reports, third sector reports, think tank and research reports. Again and again, the same themes emerge: lack of capacity, lack of capability, lack of sustainability, lack of consistency, lack of focus, lack of objectives, lack of scrutiny, lack of value for money. The theme goes on and on and rather like the theme in Titanic, and, like the Titanic, this Government is holed below the waterline, and the taxpayer's pound is sinking into the abyss.

The passion I and my colleagues have to raise the game in Wales to ensure there is a deep sense of fiscal responsibility is why I'm rejecting most of the amendments before us; the Government's because it is utterly pointless and has no shame, no recognition of the taxpayer's pound they've consistently wasted, and no sense of responsibility—it's always somebody else's fault—Gareth Bennett's amendment because we don't do ostrich—move on, Gareth, the times have. Neil McEvoy's amendment I have some sympathy with, but I would need to be convinced that pushing everything through local authorities is the answer.

I will accept Caroline Jones's amendment. Trust is low, and I think the waste of money the public sees—the overspends, the lack of responsibility—has contributed to people in Wales giving up and not participating. Would you trust anyone who wasted £1 billion of your money? We've all heard of the usual suspects: £221 million on uncompetitive enterprise zones; over £9 million on the flawed initial funding for the Circuit of Wales; almost £100 million on delays and overspend on the Heads of the Valleys road; £157 million—gosh, that number's ingrained in our hearts, isn't it—on the M4 relief road inquiry; over £100 million just propping up Cardiff Airport.

But, as ever, there are devils to be found in the detail. There are lesser known screw-ups where there were no clear objectives, where there was no real capacity to scale up success, where there was no commitment to long-term sustainability, where the projects that were failing were not terminated promptly enough, where scrutiny was ad hoc or non-existent, or not reviewed by people with the authority or the guts to make the hard decisions.

An example of sheer fiscal incompetence can be found in the June 2020 Audit Wales report on Labour's rural development grant scheme. The report found that £53 million of grants were made without ensuring value for money. And I quote the Wales Audit Office report: out of £598 million already provided under the scheme,

'the Welsh Government granted £68 million through "direct applications". In this process, officials invited known individuals or organisations to apply without any competition.'

In short, the auditor general found that key aspects of the design, operation and oversight of the Welsh Government's controls over the programme were not effective enough to secure value for money. In other words, the Welsh Government granted funds without competition, did not document why applicants were selected and made individual grant awards without demonstrating sufficient consideration for value for money. If that were not careless enough with the taxpayer's pound, the Labour Government just handed out funds to existing projects without checking if they were successful. There was no meaningful programme and project oversight.

Let me turn from the Wales Audit Office to examples from the Senedd's Public Accounts Committee. The Public Accounts Committee published two reports over the course of this term highlighting concerns with the accounts of Natural Resources Wales. Seven years ago, the creation of NRW through the merger of the environment agency, countryside council and the forestry commission, was heralded as a way of providing a more accountable, streamlined and efficient way of managing and safeguarding the nation's environment and natural resources. Yet the reports by PAC have highlighted that NRW have failed to deliver on these goals.

The committee was damning in its condemnation of NRW following contracts it had agreed on timber sales. They highlighted the auditor general's findings that the contracts were novel, repercussive and contentious and reinforced views that uncertainty existed around whether Natural Resources Wales complied with principles of public law and state-aid rules. 

What makes these findings worse is that the lessons were not learnt, because 18 months later the Public Accounts Committee repeated its criticism. They found that there were a number of concerning issues around the awarding of these timber contracts that were unexplained, leading the committee to conclude there had been a cultural failure within the organisation in relation to governance and that a serious overhaul is needed. 

Minister, have you picked up the Titanic thing yet? Like a range of other public bodies and public projects in Wales, there was not enough oversight and accountability, no commitment to using the taxpayer's pound wisely and seeking value for money, and a complete inability to learn from failure. The mistakes kept going on and on.

Similar findings were highlighted when PAC investigated the Supporting People programme. It found that the pace of progress in addressing issues raised by previous reviews, for example, with regard to the funding formula and the monitoring of the impact of the programme, had been slow. There were also ongoing inconsistencies in the management of the programme at a local level. Minister, this was a programme that had been in place for 14 years, and, in 14 years, your programme could not get its act together. How long should it take? 

Nor did the Public Accounts Committee hold back on its scrutiny of the NHS Wales Informatics Service. Let me give you another direct quote:

'Our inquiry has raised serious question marks about the competence, capability and capacity across the health system to deliver a digital transformation in Welsh healthcare. And yet we discovered a culture of self-censorship and denial amongst those charged with taking the agenda forward'.

To be frank, that's no surprise. I've seen this culture of self-censorship and denial up close every month for the past decade or more. 

Other committees make the same points on portfolio-specific inquiries, including many on health, ranging from care homes to GP clusters, education and community spends. Minister, these are not partisan reports written by unfriendly think tanks or opposition politicians, but the findings of Welsh Parliament scrutiny committees with cross-party representation, often following reports by the auditor general.

I say to the people of Wales: do not despair, there is a lifeboat in sight. Because a Welsh Conservative Government would ensure that, from day one, it was accountable and transparent. We will immediately put in place the office of Government resilience and efficiency, which would be separate to the Government and have a cross-portfolio responsibility to ensure that policy and spending decisions follow the overall objectives of the Government and dovetail with each other. After all, we saw the disaster of the Welsh Labour Government's climate change policy. It was in direct contradiction with the M4 relief road debacle. It took £157 million before Labour figured that one out. 

OGRE will change that culture of self-censorship and denial. We will not be afraid to challenge and change. It is why we need a devolution revolution. OGRE will not just scrutinise expenditure, but it will scrutinise and ensure there is cohesion in all our policies, whether it's climate change and sustainability, human rights, raising educational standards, protecting the vulnerable and poor, food security, delivering properly funded social care, or protecting the NHS.

We, the Welsh Conservatives, will remember we're here to serve the citizens of Wales. We will spend the taxpayer's pound wisely. We will cut out the unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and ensure we deliver a more streamlined and transparent Government. Welsh Conservative policies have clear objectives, clear outcomes and rigorous management, where policies are given every chance to succeed, but evaluated and stopped if they are not working. No more taxpayers' pounds going into an endless abyss. 

Let me finish by making it clear that the last point of our motion is an exercise in hope over experience. We hope Labour will step up and stop the waste, but the reality is that, after 20-odd years and well over £1 billion of taxpayers' money wasted in just the last decade, I don't think Welsh Labour Government are capable of driving a culture change, of delivering value for money, of challenging decision making. We will call for it, but I'm not holding my breath. But, Minister, you should. The Titanic's going down.

I have selected the four amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd to move amendment 1, formally.

Formally, Rebecca Evans?

Amendment 1—Rebecca Evans

Delete all and replace with

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes that the successful management of taxpayers’ money depends on clear objectives, good governance and effective scrutiny and recognises the poor value for money represented by austerity economics.

2. Regrets that the UK Government has underfunded and / or blocked numerous non-devolved projects, services and infrastructure in Wales including research and development, rail, broadband and tidal energy since 2010.

3. Welcomes the progress made in delivering innovative Welsh Government policies designed for the people of Wales including: free prescriptions, Jobs Growth Wales, presumed consent for organ donation, the single cancer pathway, the childcare offer, the doubling of the capital limit, 21st Century Schools and the Economic Resilience Fund.

4. Calls upon the UK government to provide greater fiscal flexibilities for the Welsh Government in the interests of good budget management.

Amendment 1 moved.

Yes, formally.

Thank you. I call on Caroline Jones to formally move amendment 2, tabled in her name. Caroline Jones.

Amendment 2—Caroline Jones

Insert new point after point 3 and renumber accordingly:

Believes that the Welsh Government's failure to deliver its policies has helped contribute to the lack of trust in politics which has resulted in over half of the Welsh electorate not participating in Senedd elections.

Amendment 2 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I formally move the amendment tabled in my name. Trust in politics is at an all-time low and is being made worse by a trail of broken promises. People are losing faith in devolution, because devolution has failed to deliver the promised benefits. Policy failures and Government waste have accelerated the erosion of trust in our institution. 

As the Welsh Conservatives point out in their motion, over £1 billion of funds have been wasted in the past decade; funds that could have made a real difference to the lives and the people of Wales. How many people have died of cancer because, due to a lack of resources, an early diagnosis could not be made? How many homeless veterans have died because there wasn't enough affordable accommodation? How many children have had their life chances curtailed because they were failed by the Welsh education system? Imagine what a difference £1 billion could have made to all of those lives. Imagine how many doctors or nurses could have been employed. Imagine how many affordable homes we could have built. Instead, that money disappeared along with the hopes and dreams of many Welsh voters.

Successive Welsh Governments have promised much but failed to deliver. They promised to transform the Welsh economy. They set a target of achieving 80 per cent of UK GDP, which was dropped when it was clear that it couldn't be achieved. Despite millions of pounds of state aid, Wales continues to be the poorest region of western Europe. EU structural funds, which promised to transform west Wales and the Valleys were squandered—a colossal broken promise that failed to deliver economic prosperity. Policy failures that failed to deliver much-needed jobs in my region.

South Wales West has haemorrhaged jobs over the past decade and more. We witnessed the biggest employers downscale altogether. We were promised that new employers would replace the high-paid manufacturing jobs that were lost at Sony, Ford, Visteon, 3M, Tata and a whole host of other global manufacturers. What we got was a stream of failed schemes, wasted investment and a string of low-paid call centre jobs. The people of Wales stopped listening to the broken promises. Is it any wonder that less than a third of the electorate of South Wales West bothered to vote in 2016? Across Wales, the picture is repeated. This has resulted in huge levels of distrust in politics, and less than half of eligible voters bothered to turn out at the last Senedd elections. Is it any wonder when the Executive and the legislature spend much more time debating abstract constitutional issues than they do matters that affect the lives of ordinary people in Wales?

But we have to restore faith in politics and faith in the institutions. And we can start to do that when we deliver on the promises given to the people of Wales; when we deliver improvement to people's lives; when we eliminate waste. I agree with the Welsh Conservatives that we need to establish a cross-departmental office at the heart of Government that will ensure value for money, eliminate waste and provide openness and transparency to Welsh Government. The vast majority of us are here to deliver improvements to the lives of the people of Wales, and unfortunately far too many of those people now don't trust us and we have to rebuild that trust.

I believe in devolution and I believe in the Welsh Parliament that the people of Wales voted for. And I believe in working with every party to give the people of Wales what they want and to rebuild their lives and give them a better quality of delivery. And I urge Members to support my amendment and support the motion. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much.

I call on Gareth Bennett to move amendment 3, tabled in his name. Gareth Bennett.

Amendment 3—Gareth Bennett

Delete point 4 and replace with:

Calls for a binding referendum on whether to keep or abolish the devolved government and parliament of Wales, in light of the Welsh Government’s failures.

Amendment 3 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. Thanks to the Conservatives for bringing today's debate, and I hereby move the motion on behalf of the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party.

I think that Angela Burns has given us an interesting account of the waste of taxpayers' money that has occurred over the past 21 years. It's even more interesting given that the Conservatives are in favour of devolution, yet the evidence of the failings of devolution is staring them in the face. The Conservatives will say that these are the failings of a particular political party—Welsh Labour—rather than the failings of an institution, yet the danger is that in bringing this motion, they're unwittingly giving us a full-blooded critique of devolution itself. I suppose it depends how seriously we take the Conservatives' stated solution to the problem of wasting taxpayers' money, which is to establish what they call a cross-departmental office. Well, we didn't get a lot of detail on this, and I do wonder who would be in it. Do the Conservatives really imagine that the people running this office would be any different in mindset from the people whose spending they are scrutinising? I think I heard Angela say that the new office would be called OGRE, and I fear it would be a bit of an ogre. It's a bit like the old joke about politicians working out how to cut down the number of committees so they set up a committee to look into it. And that's all this cross-departmental office would be: another committee. We already have too many of those.

So, has devolution achieved anything? Well, the Labour Government's amendment gives us a list of achievements, which doesn't, in my eyes, amount to an awful lot. Their amendment today cites free prescriptions, for instance. Yes, we have free prescriptions, but we have a health service that barely functions. Five out of the seven health boards in Wales are in some kind of special measures, with Betsi Cadwaladr in north Wales having been in this position for five long years. I know that the health service in England has its problems too, but they don't seem to be on the same scale as here in Wales. All the evidence is that devolution has given us a health service that is markedly worse than the one we had before. In one case, we had patients who could no longer even go to their local hospital, the Countess in Chester, because the hospital was refusing to admit any more patients from Wales until the Welsh Government had paid the bill. This kind of episode simply wouldn't have happened before we had devolution.

What of the economic benefits that the people of Wales were promised that devolution would bring? Well, in 2003, Edwina Hart, then a senior Labour Minister, told us that poverty in Wales would be eradicated through her Communities First schemes. Fifteen years later, these schemes were finally abandoned. The Welsh Government was unable to cite any evidence that the areas contained within the schemes had derived any economic advantage from having them. This amounts to a waste of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money. As for eradicating poverty, well, what about the promise to raise Wales's GDP to 90 per cent of the average UK GDP by 2010? We never remotely looked like achieving this, and the Welsh Government had to do what it usually does with its targets—it abandons them.

One area where we have definitely gone backwards is inward investment. When we had the Welsh Development Agency, Wales punched above its weight and attracted more than 20 per cent of all UK inward investment. Under devolution, the WDA was scrapped so that we could have, instead, a committee of bureaucrats directly answerable to the Welsh Government. The result is that inward investment has plummeted and it's now only 2 per cent of that of the UK. This is a perfect example of how devolution has actually delivered decline in Wales rather than resurgence.

Can I also mention the M4 relief road that was cited by Angela? There was a choice between two routes, but the Welsh Government opted not for one or the other, but rather not to build the road at all. This after wasting more than £150 million of taxpayers' money on the project. Oddly, one of the grounds on which the Welsh Government cancelled the scheme was its cost, yet now that the UK Government are offering to get involved, the Welsh Government are so obsessive about protecting their rights as a devolved Government that they are rejecting the offer of assistance. The people of Wales end up with £100 million of their money wasted and a road system that still doesn't get them out of the Brynglas tunnels. Please ask yourself: has devolution really done anything at all to improve the Welsh economy? All it has done has been to waste money.

No, while I agree with the sentiments of much of the Conservative motion, I feel an easier method would simply be to give the Welsh public a chance to evaluate what has happened over the past 21 years and to vote to abandon the whole failed project of devolution. What we need is another referendum, with the people of Wales being given the option to abolish the Welsh Parliament and Government. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I call on Neil McEvoy to move amendment 4, tabled in his name.

Amendment 4—Neil McEvoy

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on the Welsh Government to ensure value for money by:

a) recognising the waste of public resource in the private third sector, through duplication and top-heavy management;

b) democratising service provision through redirecting funding to local government in Wales.

Amendment 4 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I campaigned for a Welsh Parliament all my adult life because I believe in this institution, I believe in the potential that we have here. I've just listened to Abolish the Welsh Assembly, and not a single idea in the whole speech, just a criticism of the institution, when really the criticism should have been directed at the Governments since 1999. I just find it really odd that some people would prefer to be governed by another country.

I'll say to the people sat to the right of the Presiding Officer that Margaret Thatcher got me into politics when I was younger, because I disagreed with almost every single thing she was doing. Quangos: we had the quango state in Wales, and it was a question of who you knew, rather than what you knew. I remember, I was in the Labour Party in those days, campaigning with colleagues against that very undemocratic system of appointing people into jobs that most of us thought they didn't really deserve. And then we had the Welsh Assembly in 1999, now the Welsh Parliament, and some of the very same people I campaigned with have supported doing exactly the same thing, where you have the cartel in Cardiff Bay, led by Labour, propped up occasionally by Plaid and the Liberal Democrats as their helpers, and they have created a self-serving bureaucracy.

This is the point of our amendment, because we're calling on the Welsh Government to ensure value for money by recognising the waste of public resources in the private—that's a key word—private third sector through duplication and top-heavy management. What we're proposing is a democratisation of service by redirecting funding to local government in Wales.

If you look at the very bloated third sector, chief executive after chief executive on huge salaries. If you look at the housing sector, the last time I checked there were 48 different organisations being funded by the Welsh Government, people supposedly fighting homelessness, and yet their £90,000 a year paycheck relies on people being homeless, so do they really want to solve the problem? I would argue not, because what Labour's created in Wales is a poverty industry. A poverty industry. If you look at care, the care industry now, where it's an industry to look after children, and Labour has been pretty clever politically, because they've privatised that whole service area. Eighty per cent of children now are looked after by private companies in Wales.

What we need is to see an end to this culture of canapés in the Senedd. You see the people coming in, the Labour boys and the Labour girls—jobs for the boys, jobs for the girls, Labour largesse and cronyism. Exactly what I campaigned against as a kid in the 1980s, we now see happening in the Welsh Parliament. And when I talk about the third sector, let me be absolutely clear, I am not talking about front-line workers, very, very often on low pay—poverty pay in some circumstances—with fewer rights than they would have working for a local authority.

It doesn't have to be this way. At the WNP we believe in meritocracy, we believe in equality of opportunity, people working hard and succeeding. We need to re-democratise our country and vote out of existence this cosy consensus. We need to give our democratically elected colleagues in local government the tools and the finance to provide services for our people, and we have to stop making profits in Wales out of the vulnerable. I think of children's services departments, where you see social workers rushed off their feet, with mountains of work, a lack of money, and then you see millions upon millions wasted on top-heavy management, chief executive after chief executive, so-called charities that are publicly funded and yet, at that front line of local government, people are really, really struggling.

The people have been taken for a ride by the Labour Party in Wales, and it's time to derail the gravy train. That's exactly what the WNP aims to do. Diolch yn fawr.

I'm pleased to contribute to this debate. At the very heart of any Government must be a commitment to continually review its own structures and processes to ensure that they're fit for purpose and delivering value for money for the taxpayer. Every Government must be able to look at itself critically and think about how it can deliver services efficiently and effectively. To see the improvements in our public services that we all want, we have to question how decisions are being made, how resources are being allocated, and we need to identify waste. Now, earlier this year I made a commitment to the people of Wales that, should I lead a future Welsh Government, as Angela Burns said, I would establish an office of Government resilience and efficiency. The whole point of establishing that office is to create an arm's-length, independent body that could identify where resources are being wasted and where Government processes are failing to deliver improvements to our public services.

Members can all point to examples of Government projects and schemes that have been delayed and over budget. For example, this year, Audit Wales has issued a number of reports on Welsh Government infrastructure project overspends, including the A465 Heads of the Valleys road and the £60 million overspend on removal of asbestos at Glan Clwyd Hospital. These reports once again highlight the lack of sufficient mechanisms within the Welsh Government to properly plan and deliver long-term projects. Nobody is disputing the merits of delivering the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, for example. Indeed, sometimes we can overlook the wider social benefits of developing infrastructure projects across Wales, and so it's worth reiterating that good infrastructure development, when it's delivered properly, has the ability to transform how we live and work in so many ways. Well-crafted and developed infrastructure can better connect us to essential goods and services, it can provide better living conditions, better schools for our children, and it can also provide jobs throughout the construction phase and along the supply chain. Therefore, perhaps, in responding to today's debate, the Minister will tell us how the Welsh Government is measuring the social benefits of each individual project in its pipeline, and perhaps the Minister can also tell us how the Welsh Government measures the social benefits of a project when it allocates that funding.

My colleague Angela Burns has already talked about millions and millions of pounds a year that have been wasted that could be spent delivering infrastructure to better support communities right across the country. That's valuable funding that could be used to widen roads, improve schools or build houses. Sadly, there have been countless reports over the years of projects that have shown waste in the form of overspending, investment losses and financial irregularities. Financial waste is one thing, but it's only one piece of the puzzle, and we also need to better examine our systems too. Procurement has long been a challenge for consultants and constructors, and I'm very much aware from the discussion that I've had over the years that that process needs to be streamlined, and that the information requirements have sometime been disproportional to the value of the bid. Therefore, we have to seriously look at developing a holistic approach to delivering improvements in procurement so that, as a Government, we can maximise our spend. I'm also aware that there is a need for regular engagement and communication between partners at all stages of development. Is the Welsh Government really asking itself whether the tendering process is working as well as it can be? What after-support and discussion is there for those who've worked hard on Government projects only for the project to be pulled? These are the sorts of issues that the Government needs to better understand so that the system can be improved for the better. Therefore, I hope that, in responding to today's debate, the Minister will take the opportunity to update Members on how the Welsh Government is monitoring the effectiveness of its procurement policies, and how it's critically evaluating the way it delivers infrastructure projects.

Llywydd, I believe that a cultural change is needed to really deliver improvements in our public service delivery here in Wales. I've made it clear that I'm committed to radically reforming how Government operates and how public services in Wales are delivered, and ultimately what the people of Wales want to see is an end to silo working, a much more conscious effort to eradicate waste, and to see their hard-earned money being used effectively to deliver transformational projects.

Now, there are plenty of examples of public sector oversight across the world, and we need to learn from the way other Governments have operated and see where we can adapt those practices here. For example, in New Zealand, the policy advisory group was established to provide politically impartial, free and frank advice to the Prime Minister and other Ministers. In a similar way, the office of Government resilience and efficiency would have the same role at the heart of decision making, but also the teeth to work across the public service and with other key stakeholders to root out inefficiencies.

Therefore, in closing, Llywydd, in order to drive forward improvements in our public services and deliver successful infrastructure projects across Wales, we have to commit to re-examining our spend and our processes. I believe that's best done by creating an office of Government resilience and efficiency—an office that can help transform the way our services are delivered and that drives the type of cultural change that the people of Wales want to see. I therefore urge Members to support our motion. 

I speak in this debate to support amendment 1, tabled by Rebecca Evans, and in particular point 1, which notes the poor value for money represented by austerity economics, as highlighted by the UN criticism of UK poverty. 

Angela Burns and her Conservative colleagues would need the skills not of Job but Jackanory to explain how the Cameron and Osborne devastating austerity project, alongside May's magic money tree, has somehow morphed into the UK Tory Government borrowing just under £174 billion between April and August. We on the Welsh Labour benches will take no economic lessons from the Conservatives. In a decade, they have shape-shifted from the economic piety of Ebenezer Scrooge to the economic policies of a national lottery winner in Las Vegas. So, the Tories can stop—please just stop your lecturing to the people of Wales and the Members of this Senedd about your superiority and fidelity to value for money for taxpayers because—[Interruption.]

I draw Members' attention to amendment 1, point 3, which welcomes the progress made in delivering innovative Welsh Government policies—free prescriptions, Jobs Growth Wales, presumed consent for organ donation, the single cancer pathway, the childcare offer, the doubling of the capital limit, twenty-first century schools, and the economic resilience fund. I could go on, but let me be succinct: the Tories understand the price of everything and the value of nothing, and it is Welsh Labour who the people of Wales trust with the public sector and with fiscal propriety to protect, nurture and grow Wales because the strong fiscal discipline and vision for Wales that we implement flies in the very face of a whole decade of evidenced UK Tory Government policy, as they continue to squeeze the Welsh public budget until the pips squeak. Wales is now £4 billion worse off since they came to office, and we work to counter this every day, and it is why they are desperate to weaken devolution and weaken this place.

The Tory UK Government has so far spent £57 million and rising in consultancy contracts—too many to mention. Deloitte is doing very well—£6.7 million in contracts, a further £3 million for providing to the Cabinet Office, and £2.5 million in contracts from the Tory Treasury—and PricewaterhouseCoopers, £3 million in consultancy. I could go on. So, the Tory approach to supervising taxpayers' money is deeply worrying, but it is no different to the way successive Tory Governments have always behaved, with the sell-off of our national industries, the break-up of our public sector and public services, and a desire to erode and grind down local government for privatisation. In contrast, here, the Welsh Labour Government in Wales strengthens and maintains our public service ethos. It is at its very core and central to our very being. In Wales, 'not for profit' means something.

Finally, let me return to the UK Tory Government borrowing just under £174 billion between April and August. In those four short months of summer, the Tories borrowed more than the UK Labour Government borrowed in the whole of the financial year when the Labour Government bailed out the banks and saved the economy from ruin. And that is important, because do you remember, in this very place, the endless goading from the Tory benches of fixing the roof when the sun shone, of them saying Labour had spent all the money, and that this, colleagues, was the only reason used to fulfil their deep ideological desire to shrink the state with a decade of austerity, and for what? In four months, they borrowed more than the Labour Government in an entire year. Yet again, typical Tories at the height of hypocrisy. Llywydd, they seek to claim the monopoly on economic competence, yet the Welsh people know they would not trust the Tories to sell them a second-hand banger, let alone trust them to manage our public finances. Thank you. 

I'm pleased to contribute to this afternoon's debate, and I've got to say, just listening to that last contribution from Rhianon Passmore, I do find it a bit rich when the Welsh Labour Government have constantly called on the UK Government to provide more funding to this place and more funding for public services in Wales at the very time that they just received an extra £4 billion to support public services and the Welsh economy. We get contributions that then say that the Conservative Party is economically incompetent. You can't have it both ways, Rhianon Passmore. You can't on the one hand call for greater borrowing and greater support and then, when that is provided, turn on the hand that has given you that money. So, I, for one, and the Welsh Conservatives on this side of the Chamber, are more than happy that the UK Government is borrowing money at the moment. It is supporting the UK economy, and it is supporting the Welsh economy and people in Wales, and I think, in next year's Senedd election, the people of Wales will see that that support has been offered. 

Point 1 of the motion goes to the heart of what this motion is all about: the successful management of taxpayers’ money depends on clear objectives, agreed outcomes and rigorous scrutiny. How often in this Chamber and virtually over the last few months have we spoken about the importance of building back better after the pandemic, and developing a more sustainable economy and transport infrastructure? Well, that process of building back better must involve eliminating waste, increasing efficiency and delivering value for money for the taxpayer. And let me be clear what I mean by 'value for money', because that doesn't mean always going for the cheapest option and settling for less than best. But it does mean embedding and developing an anti-waste culture at the heart of Government, ensuring that there is always a watchful eye over Government spending across departments, and one which flags up Government waste at the earliest opportunity. 

I certainly don't see our proposals for a new department as working in conflict with existing mechanisms for scrutiny—far from it. I see them as complementing those existing mechanisms, including the Senedd's own Public Accounts Committee, which was referred to by Angela Burns, Audit Wales and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. In June 2020, Audit Wales produced a report on the Welsh Government's rural development grant scheme, finding that £53 million of grants were made without ensuring value for money or effective competition. The Auditor General for Wales found that key aspects of the design, operation and oversight of the Welsh Government controls over the programme were not effective enough to secure value for money. The failures listed included inviting funding applications from certain organisations without documenting why, giving additional funds to existing projects without first checking their success, and exercising insufficient project oversight. 

There were, of course, earlier examples of lack of efficiency which have been referred to by other Members—Communities First, for instance. Communities First's strengths, including a strong brand and trusted employees, were a good thing, but, unfortunately, they were overshadowed by a lack of co-ordination and duplication of delivery work. There was a lack of an anchor to that project, and there have been similar programmes since. Quite simply, it wasn't value for money and it wasn't picked up quickly enough. 

The problem doesn't just include the Welsh Government itself; it does extend to Welsh public sector bodies too, as Angela Burns mentioned. Audit Wales reported that Natural Resources Wales would have its accounts qualified as a result of its handling of timber contracts, again referred to earlier, which auditors Grant Thornton stated heightened exposure to the risk of fraud. And in January 2020, the auditor general qualified the organisation's accounts for the fourth year in a row due to doubts as to whether NRW acted in accordance with its statutory duties and public law principles. 

We need to build greater resilience into the system, and that doesn't just mean financial resilience; it means resilience in data handling too. Flaws were only recently exposed in the Welsh Government's handling of personal data with the three significant data breaches culminating in the details of 18,000 individuals being posted on Public Health Wales's website for 24 hours. This included, as we know, details of nearly 2,000 care home residents. 

So, it's not just a question of financial resilience; it's a question of resilience across the Welsh Government, and across the public sector, which is why we are proposing some of the changes that we've put forward. This is a motion that is basically about giving the people of Wales confidence—confidence that, when they vote, whichever party or parties form the Welsh Government, resilience and value for money will be built into that process and into that system from the start, not added as an afterthought. We need to build resilience, ensure value for money for the taxpayer, and promote, all-importantly, a new culture of efficiency. That is what this is about: increasing scrutiny and casting a light on some of the darker corners of Government, as we start on the long journey of building back better.

And in conclusion, Llywydd, Neil McEvoy said—and I agree with him—we need to reconstruct; I think you said we need to change the culture of Government, by removing the darkness—. I've got your quote quite wrong there, actually, by the way, Neil McEvoy; I should never try to quote you—you do it far more eloquently yourself. But you said that things can't go on as they were before, and we need to make sure, I believe, that we do not remove the very democracy that provides the opportunity for change that we are trying to seek.

I want to focus my remarks on the economy and infrastructure and why the creation of a cross-departmental office for government resilience and efficiency is fundamental if we are to see the end of the silo working that has characterised the performance of successive Welsh Governments over the past 20 years. The establishment of the office at the heart of Government, as outlined earlier by Angela Burns, will ensure that all Government departments of central Government have a laser-like focus on working in a cross-departmental way, delivering projects that require substantial investment in transport and infrastructure on time and on budget—something that hasn't so often occurred to date. Surely, this is an ambition that can command cross-party support.

Many projects require substantial investment, and transport and infrastructure are notorious, as we all know, for running over budget, whilst taking longer and longer to complete. The list is long: the Circuit of Wales, Cardiff Airport, enterprise zones, £157 million wasted on the mothballed M4 road to nowhere. Angela Burns mentioned that £157 million. What about the £15 million spent on properties along the M4 relief road, compulsory purchased? They remain assets of the Welsh Government. But what about the legal costs and the professional fees that have been wasted in buying those properties? And we think of the two properties that were purchased just last year, two months before the Welsh Government scrapped the entire project. So one Government department buys two properties; two months later, another Government department—the First Minister's office—scraps the very project that the properties were purchased for. Isn't that an example of why we need this office?

Paul Davies mentioned a number of reports from the Wales Audit Office, or Audit Wales as it's now called—the overspends on the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, the £60 million overspend on the removal of asbestos at Glangwili hospital—highlighting the lack of sufficient mechanisms within the Welsh Government to properly plan and deliver long-term projects. Those are the words of Audit Wales, not my words: 'the lack of sufficient mechanisms within the Welsh Government'. As I've previously said in this Chamber, Presiding Officer, the Welsh Government has been guilty of a failure to properly plan for long-term delivery of road infrastructure and road improvement schemes, a failure to appropriately manage the procurement and delivery of road schemes, and a failure to support Wales's road network with appropriate levels of financing.

I remain concerned with this ongoing lack of planning to deliver infrastructure projects on time. And in spite of plenty of assurances to the contrary, we still see no change in this area. We need to start delivering responsive, high-quality, efficient and accessible public services that represent value for money for the Welsh taxpayer, by establishing an office to deliver cross-Government efficiency and public sector transformation, which has responsibility for ensuring public value, planning, performance, and supporting procurement. In my view, Presiding Officer, a new Welsh Government office for Government resilience and efficiency would be a critical friend. It would provide the clear, cross-departmental oversight and robust scrutiny that is required and is necessary to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent appropriately and is not being wasted by the Welsh Government. I urge Members to support our motion today.

The Minister for Finance and Trefnydd, Rebecca Evans.

Llywydd, delivering value for money is a constant priority for the Welsh Government. It was the case prior to the pandemic and our targeted response to the COVID-19 crisis has been driven by that same commitment. Our objectives as a Government are focused on bringing about a more prosperous, more equal and greener Wales. In order to achieve that aim, we're taking a long-term approach, underpinned by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 because we know how short-termism can damage life chances, while building up preventable, wasteful costs to the public purse. When taking decisions, the Welsh Government follows governance requirements set out in 'Managing Welsh Public Money'. This ensures that value-for-money considerations are embedded in the preparation and scrutiny of all ministerial advice and in Welsh Government major projects and programme management.

Transparency and accountability also play an essential role in supporting the scrutiny that tests the responsible use of public money. I regard this as integral to our approach. Unlike the UK Government, we presented a first supplementary budget in May to provide a greater degree of transparency with the details on the budget adjustments made since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, of course, Members will recall the confusion created by the Chancellor's summer economic update, after which the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies called on the UK Treasury to follow our practice by publishing similar adjustments in order to provide greater transparency. Our intention is to be as transparent as we are able to be on the resources available to Wales as a result of the consequential adjustments to the Welsh block grant and on allocations from reserves. 

In response to the Finance Committee's report on the first supplementary budget, I have written to the committee providing further detail on consequential funding. I am committed to publishing a further supplementary budget in due course detailing further allocations, and we'll use oral and written statements to provide Members with updates on the in-year financial position as it develops. We've always taken seriously the responsible use of public money because of the powerful role we know it can play in transforming lives. I am proud that sound budget management has supported the delivery of decisions in Wales that set us apart, including free prescriptions, Jobs Growth Wales, the single cancer pathway, the childcare offer, the doubling of the capital limit that people can keep before paying for social care and the ongoing development of twenty-first century schools and colleges across Wales.

During this crisis, we have moved quickly to establish a fighting fund, held in a central reserve dedicated to our COVID response. As well as using new consequentials, the reserve has been boosted by repurposed budgets, as set out in the first supplementary budget. And thanks to this strategic approach, we have been in a position to confirm allocations, including close to £0.5 billion for local authorities, £800 million for the NHS stabilisation fund and over £800 million in grants for businesses. Allocations from the reserve are rigorously scrutinised through a process that was established early on in the pandemic. I consider COVID-19-related finance issues on a regular basis, including allocations from the reserve, with support from other Ministers and a range of officials. And since March, almost 100 of these meetings have taken place, which have supported our ability to speed up the decision-making process in recognition of the urgent pressures that we face.

I know that the Permanent Secretary also takes her personal responsibilities as the principal accounting officer very seriously. Together with the Permanent Secretary, I chair an efficiency board, which considers ways in which the Welsh Government can use its own resources to best effect. This process has radically redefined our relationship with sponsored bodies, securing a more effective, strategic approach and efficiency savings. We have also established a governance centre of excellence to ensure that all of the Welsh Government can access experienced and professional advice and challenge. Scrutiny by Audit Wales and the Public Accounts Committee is, of course, a welcome source of external challenge and review. The recommendations produced are monitored for implementation by the Welsh Government audit and risk assurance committees to ensure lessons are learned and actions are taken. Audit Wales is a standing member of this committee.

It's important to note that the proportion of Government activity represented by the cases raised during this debate—. And it's, of course, right that those are examined and those lessons are learned. And, as I've detailed, we have a process in place to ensure that happens. However, each year, we issue around 11,000 grant award letters to third parties from about 400 different grant schemes. Very few of those grant awards give rise to issues that call for scrutiny by the auditor general and a report to the Public Accounts Committee. 

So, it's right that we recognise those cases that have been referred to today, but they do represent the exception, rather than the rule. I just don't think it's credible to suggest that the reports, which rightly draw out challenging and critical feedback, support an overall conclusion that the Welsh Government is not using public money responsibly. Delivering value for money is ultimately reliant on sound budget management, something which is increasingly undermined by the UK Government's refusal to take seriously the concerns raised by devolved administrations. I've previously described to colleagues numerous examples of the UK Government's failure to adhere to the statement of funding policy, which has made the Welsh Government worse off—from eleventh hour capital reductions to pension funding shortfalls.

It's concerning that the UK Government still refuses to act within the fiscal framework to allow us greater access to, and control over, the Wales reserve in order to better plan for our response to the pandemic this year. Far from seeking new largesse from Whitehall, this request is simply about allowing the Welsh Government to make decisions about how to use the funding that we have set aside to manage during uncertain times. We'll continue to target our resources in a manner that promotes value for money for the people of Wales and we will continue to urge the UK Government to provide the fiscal flexibilities necessary to support that aim. 

I call on Darren Millar to reply to the debate. Darren Millar. 

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you to everyone who's contributed to what I think has been a very important debate on the need to ensure value for money for Welsh taxpayers, because, as one wonderful woman, Margaret Thatcher, once said,

'There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money.'

And we are responsible, in this place, for making sure that it is spent very wisely. I'm sorry to hear that the Minister does not accept the need for improvements in scrutiny of the way that public money is spent, because we heard whole long lists from speaker after speaker in the Senedd debate today about failings in the Welsh Government's own processes, which have resulted in over £1 billion worth of waste of taxpayers' money.

Of course, we must remember that when taxpayers' money is wasted there are opportunity costs, as Caroline Jones quite rightly spelt out. There's money that you can't, then, invest in our health service, that you can't invest in our education system and that you can't invest in Welsh infrastructure. So, it's absolutely right, when she said that we need to rebuild trust; we need to rebuild trust in a future Welsh Government to manage these things properly. 

I disagree wholeheartedly with Gareth Bennett when he said that this is evidence of the failing of devolution. It's not. It's the evidence of a failing Welsh Labour-led administration, and its junior partners, also, need to accept some of that blame. Plaid, of course, have been unusually absent in making a contribution to a debate on this matter in the Chamber today, which I find pretty extraordinary. 

Neil McEvoy's contribution started so well with a reference to Margaret Thatcher, but it quickly went downhill, and the less said about the end, frankly, the better. But I will say this, in response to Neil's contribution: he's quite right to identify the cronyism that is all too apparent here in Wales. But I will say, in response to him, in terms of his comments about the third sector: we are not at war with the third sector as a Conservative Party here in Wales, we are at war with waste and inefficiency, and that is why we need, as Paul Davies has said on multiple occasions, a devolution revolution—a revolution that radically reforms and reshapes and re-energises the Welsh Government into the lean fighting machine that the people of Wales expect it to be.

We need to be able to have a system that is not slow to pull the plug on projects that don't work, and that is quick to invest in projects that do work, so that we don't have this perpetual pilot-project process that we have in Wales where there are demonstrated improvements, as Angela Burns said at the outset in her opening contribution, where we have proven projects that work, and the Welsh Government doesn't roll out further. There are many international examples. Paul Davies pointed to one in New Zealand. We know that the UK Government has the Office for Budget Responsibility as well, which also contributes to the scrutiny processes of the UK Government and the way it orders its finances.

I was very disappointed by Rhianon Passmore's contribution—completely and unnecessarily partisan. Of course, she was given short shrift by Nick Ramsay in his response, who, I thought, rebuked Rhianon Passmore, frankly, with finesse.

Russell George focused his remarks on roads and infrastructure, and the significant overspends that we've had on those, and I think it's absolutely right that he mentioned the ridiculous situation where we had a number of homes and properties purchased within just weeks of the First Minister's announcement. More taxpayers' money down the pan. Of course, that's not the only example, of that—we also saw that with the Pinewood project site.

So, I implore Members of the Senedd to support our motion on the order paper today. We need an arm's-length, cross-departmental, independent office of budget responsibility, or Government resilience and efficiency rather, to ensure that taxpayers can get value for money here in Wales. It will complement the other systems that we have in place with Audit Wales and the Public Accounts Committee and the work of this Senedd as a whole, and I commend the motion to Members.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? Are there any objections to the motion? [Objection.] Yes, there are objections, and therefore I will defer voting until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

And in accordance with Standing Orders, there will now be a break of five minutes before we move to voting time. 

Plenary was suspended at 18:32.

The Senedd reconvened at 18:39, with the Llywydd in the Chair.