Therefore, we will move to questions from party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson first—Nick Ramsay. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, as we know, the Auditor General for Wales has qualified his opinion on the Welsh Government accounts for the first time ever, because £739 million of expenditure was omitted relating to the Welsh Government's coronavirus response. This was something that was discussed with officials in the Public Accounts Committee on Monday. Had the cost of the business support schemes been included in the Welsh Government accounts, this would effectively had turned the underspend of £436 million into an overspend of £303 million. There are, clearly, a number of accounting issues that need to be tidied up here. What steps are being taken to avoid this kind of thing happening in future? 

Well, as Nick Ramsay will know, through the briefing he's had as part of the Public Accounts Committee's work, this is a technical disagreement between the Welsh Government and the auditor in terms of how funding should be classified for this year, in the sense that funding was announced and when it went out the door was potentially across years. So, it is a disagreement in terms of how things should be coded. But, I have to say, we're not the only ones in this position. I think all four Governments across the UK are facing the same decision. And, absolutely, we don't regret making that early announcement of support for businesses, so that they could plan and prepare as we entered the original lockdown back in March. 

Diolch, Gweinidog. As you say, and I agree, there's no question at all that the Welsh Government were right to commit that funding to support businesses across Wales during the pandemic. But I'm sure you'd agree that it is important that money that is spent by Government is accounted for properly. I also appreciate, as you said, this is a technical issue, and a very technical issue for those of us who got into the details of it on Monday, but it is, nonetheless, unprecedented, and certainly within the context of the UK devolved administrations, although, as you said there might be others that are involved in this too. So, there is, as I said before, a need to tidy this up and to have a firm agreement with the audit office. I wonder if you could update us with any discussions you've had with Audit Wales about how we could proceed in future to make sure that these sorts of disputes don't arise again, or to have a mechanism, indeed, where those disputes can be easily dealt with?

I haven't personally had discussions with Audit Wales on this issue. As you say, it is a technical matter and, I think, most appropriately dealt with, in this instance, through officials. But I know officials have had some significant and lengthy discussions on this matter, and obviously we'd be keen to avoid it happening again in future. 

Thank you, Minister. I know that officials have been working hard, as we found out on Monday, to try and sort this out. I think that this is a technical issue, but, for the good of the Welsh Government's accounting reputation and, indeed, for the good of other devolved administrations' reputations, if there is indeed an issue with their accounts as well, we do need to have an undertaking on an agreement to go forward so that this doesn't happen again. 

Also, and finally, given that this year's £739 million will appear extensively in next year's accounts, given that it wasn't in this year's accounts, is there a strong likelihood that next year's accounts will be qualified too, and have there been discussions with the auditor general about what could be done about this?

It's my understanding that that won't be the case next year, and a line has been drawn, if you like, under this particular episode. But I agree that some good discussions between officials and Audit Wales need to take place, and have taken place, in order to clarify the situation and ensure that we both have the same understanding of the rules and the technicalities within which we operate. 

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth. 

Thank you very much, Llywydd. The Minister would agree with me in terms of how inadequate the Welsh Government's fiscal powers are, and that has been highlighted during the current pandemic. Can the Minister outline what options the Welsh Government has considered to increase revenue and capital available to them to deal with current issues related to the pandemic, but also to build back better, as we all want to see happening?

Well, as Rhun ap Iorwerth knows, our journey into tax raising in Wales is very much in its infancy. However, we have been able to use the tools at our disposal during the pandemic, and an example would be the way in which we treated the recent announcement on the part of the Chancellor regarding land transaction tax, or stamp duty land tax as it's referred to across the border. By taking a different set of decisions here in Wales, we were able to free up an additional £30 million of funding in order to target that at homelessness, which is a particular concern during the pandemic. So, there have been some things that we've been able to do. We deliberately took the decision not to raise Welsh rates of income tax. If we had done so by 1p, then that would have raised around £200 million. We took the decision not to do that because we made a commitment to the people of Wales at the start of this Senedd that we wouldn't be raising Welsh rates of income tax during that time.  

Given that we don't have the flexibility that I would like to see us having in Wales as an independent nation, we will have to be innovative in how we increase our capacity to invest in the future of Wales. 

So, if I can take the Minister back to her statement on MIM last week, I think there were a few questions that remain unanswered from that statement. Transparency is crucial in relation to MIM. It is a long-term commitment, there are higher costs related to it, and hiding behind things like commercial sensitivity isn't a way of stopping scrutiny of contracts and so on. So, in the name of transparency, I would ask what the profit cap is on the schools contract with Meridiam. And given that MIM evolved from PFI—it's still an expensive way of spending, with the Scottish Futures Trust saying it costs around 23 per cent more than funding projects through public sector borrowing—what assurance can the Minister give that MIM is an effective enough evolution from PFI, where there was far too much profit made for too little risk? So, how can you give us an assurance that we are not paying over the odds for the MIM contracts that the Government will sign?

As I said to Rhun ap Iorwerth last week, I'm afraid, as the contract contains commercially sensitive information, we wouldn't be looking to publish it. But, there is always an element of profit when we procure infrastructure. In this case, however, the precise amount of that profit will be determined by the performance of the company over the life of the contract, and that's one of the benefits of the MIM scheme, in the sense that the pay is very much performance related.

The procurement exercise tested each of the three shortlisted bidders on quality and price in their submissions, and Meridiam submitted the most economically advantageous tender in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, so I can certainly provide those assurances and, as Rhun ap Iorwerth knows, Welsh Government is taking a stake in this exercise as well, which means that we will be the beneficiaries of any profits made alongside those other partners.

If I could turn, finally, to another form of borrowing, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced plans on 9 November for the UK to issue its first green bonds next year, as part of an effort to shore up the city of London's status as a global financial hub and to fund decarbonisation efforts. I accept that if Welsh Government were to issue its own bonds, that would count towards its borrowing cap, which we'd like to increase, of course; I've made my representations to the Minister on that. They also accept the evidence given by Gerry Holtham to the Finance Committee's review on Welsh Government capital funding sources around Welsh Government-issued bonds. But I think there's an important point to make here about nation building and Welsh Government signalling its commitment, and not just to tackling the climate crisis but also its ambition to put Wales in a position to be a part of what is a multibillion pound global market in these bonds, and growing. Has Welsh Government explored the use and application of green bonds, and the potential role of the Wales development bank in this? We can see Germany's KfW as an example—a publicly owned development bank, one of the largest players in the green bonds market at the moment.

Well, as Rhun ap Iorwerth says, any bonds would count towards our Welsh Government borrowing, and of course we have that aggregate limit of £1 billion and a maximum borrowing of £150 million in any one year, which is a relatively small amount of money in the greater scheme of things. He'll also be aware of the discussions that we've had previously, that Welsh Government will always look to use the cheapest forms of borrowing first, and of course bonds come at the more expensive end, which is why it's not something that we've pursued thus far. But I do share his keenness to have greater flexibility in terms of borrowing, so increasing the amount that we could borrow on an annual basis, but then also increasing that overall aggregate figure as well.