7. What assessment has the Welsh Government undertaken of the impact of the planned national insurance rises on the public sector in Wales? OQ56934

I thank Joyce Watson, Llywydd. Planned national insurance rises will adversely affect Welsh public services in a number of ways. Employer national insurance contributions, for example, will drive up costs for all public services, while employee contributions will fall disproportionately on lower-paid workers who do so much to provide these services in Wales.

Thank you for that. It's bad enough that this is an enforced tax rise on working people in Wales, but it mustn't be a financial and administrative burden on our public services as well. So, what discussions has your administration had with the Westminster Government to ensure that the Welsh public sector employers are fully compensated and supported to pay for and administer the incoming tax charges? 

I thank Joyce Watson for what is a very important question. Our initial estimate is that the direct cost to Welsh public services of employer national insurance contributions will be somewhere between £80 million and £90 million a year, and that does not include any contracted staff that they may have, as will be very common in social care. I'm afraid, Llywydd, the answer to the Member's question probably is, 'We'll never know', because we will have the opacity of the Barnett formula wrapped up in a comprehensive spending review, and I have no doubt at all that the UK Government will claim that all those costs have somehow been covered by the sums that they then derive from that exercise. It will be very difficult indeed to see whether that is in reality the case, or whether it is just the normal smoke and mirrors that we see around spending times. What is certain, Llywydd, is this: that of the money that the UK Government says will be invested in health and social care after April of next year, fully 12 per cent of it will come from the national insurance contributions of people who work in health and social care. So, it is the people who are doing the job who are being asked to pay for the money that is being provided. That is why we have said all along that national insurance was not the right vehicle through which to provide the very necessary funding for those vital public services.

Finally, question 8, Samuel Kurtz.