10. Debate: The Draft Budget 2021-2022

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:23 pm on 9 February 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 7:23, 9 February 2021

Diolch, Llywydd. Thank you very much to all colleagues for their contributions to the debate this evening. It's been useful to hear from all colleagues, and I will definitely be mindful of those comments as we move towards the final budget, as will my ministerial colleagues, who I know have been listening to the debate as well. 

Quite a significant number of the comments related to in-year spend and our current efforts to tackle the pandemic. I will be publishing the third supplementary budget very shortly, and colleagues will have the opportunity to scrutinise and debate that. So, I'll reserve my comments on in-year spending and in-year allocations until we have that debate, although I did want to just respond to the one comment, which was made in respect of funding for business. And I do want to confirm that Welsh Government has actually spent more on business support here in Wales than we have received in consequentials from the UK Government, and that's how we've been able to provide the most generous possible settlement for businesses anywhere in the UK. 

So, just to give some context as to where we are at the moment, the revenue budget for 2021-22 will increase by £694 million, and that's an increase of 4.6 per cent in cash terms, but that also means that our core budget per person is actually 3 per cent lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11. So, I think that does demonstrate the constraints that we're still operating under. In addition, there's the £766 million of additional COVID-related funding, and that is much less than the £5.2 billion of funding that we've been allocated this year. So, I think that also should focus our minds, in terms of how we're able to allocate that funding prudently for next year.