Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 13 October 2021.
Well thank you for that. You've made the point for us, I think, that the UK Government has powers that we don't have in this place to respond to this. And once again, exceptional circumstances, as we're facing at the moment, show how few powers and macroeconomic levers we have here in Wales to be able to respond to different crises. We saw elements of that with regard to the pandemic. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that devolved governments had been held back in their fiscal response to the pandemic by insufficient reserved funds, by limited borrowing powers, and so on. Now, your argument as a Government debate last week took us in that direction as well, regarding the failures and deficiencies of the current settlement in the fiscal context. So, in the light of all of this, do you acknowledge that the current settlement is insufficient, that we need to renegotiate the fiscal framework, and to do that to strengthen, of course, the fiscal powers that we have here in Wales, to empower us to respond better to situations as they arise?