Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:13 pm on 9 March 2021.
Well, Llywydd, I agree with Huw Irranca-Davies. It is surely one thing not to be able to be wise before the event, and that is certainly the record of the Welsh Conservative party, but it's a party that doesn't even manage to be wise after the event, either. Had we taken that party's advice back in October, then, of course, Huw Irranca-Davies is right, we would not have been in a position at all to support Welsh businesses in the way that we have during the remainder of the current financial year. Back in October, we had spent two thirds of our budget at the two-thirds point of this financial year. We had spent three quarters of our budget when we were three quarters of the way through the financial year, and as I said in my original answer, at the end of the financial year, we will have spent 99.6 per cent of all the funding available to the Welsh Government, and that, Llywydd, is a pattern repeated year after year during the whole of the devolution era. Every year, this Welsh Government uses to the maximum the funding that we have available to support businesses and public services here in Wales. And our record compares extraordinarily favourably with UK Government departments, who never manage anything like the same match between funds available and the ability to put it to good use. The record of the Welsh Government here stands up to examination by anybody, and the advice of the Welsh Conservative Party and the nonsense, the absolutely nonsense, that they offered people back in October has been exposed very badly since then by the events that have since unfolded.