Social Care

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 14 September 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:27, 14 September 2021

Llywydd, Hefin David points to a very important continuing flaw in the settlement. Health and social care services in England now have certainty about how much money they will have for the rest of this financial year and in the next financial year. No devolved Government has the same certainty. We will not know until 27 October how much money will come to Wales. We know what the product of the recent announcements amounts to, but what we don't know is what other decisions will be made inside the UK Government that would have negative Barnett consequentials. So, we are just as likely to lose money for other decisions as we have been to gain money through this. That isn't the case for the Department of Health in England. They now know that, whatever other spending decisions are made, they're guaranteed to get the money that was announced. We will not know that. We will not know it until after 27 October, and the Member makes a very important point about the unfairness of that. 

Now, last year that was partially mitigated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because he provided an overall funding guarantee to Wales, to Scotland and Northern Ireland, and we welcomed that because it ironed out some of this uncertainty for us. He's not been willing to do that this year and, as a result, we won't have the certainty that the Member asked for until we know both the money that will come to Wales and other decisions. Members here will remember the completely perverse decision that was made in terms of Barnett comparabilities in relation to the HS2 scheme, where we offered no comparabilities at all, despite the fact that it has direct impacts for us in Wales. We'll be watching for further such decisions over the weeks ahead, and then after 27 October, once we know what we've actually got for health, for social care and for the other very important responsibilities that this Senedd discharges, of course we will return to the floor here with the Government's proposals.