Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 15 December 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:47, 15 December 2021

Thank you to Peter Fox for that series of questions, all of which will become clear when the budget is published on Monday. But I do want to respond to some of those issues, particularly around the co-operation agreement. We've worked very carefully and closely with Plaid Cymru to ensure that those items within the co-operation agreement are funded, and that they are deliverable. So, we've been very careful in that kind of forensic work to ensure that the co-operation agreement is deliverable and is seamless, really, with our overall budget.

And, then, I think, I need to put the budget for next year within some kind of context, because, yes, we have had a significant uplift in the first year of the three-year spending review, but then the next two years are very, very tight after that. And, I think that we need to see that initial first-year uplift within context, because it's only a large increase if you actually split out all of the COVID funding that we've had for this financial year. If you take away all the additional COVID funding we've had this year, our budget next year is actually lower than this year, and I think that we need to bear that in mind, given the fact that COVID isn't going away and we're seeing that very much reflected in the challenges now that we're facing with the new strain, the new variant. I do think that context is everything, really, for the budget. But I hope that colleagues will be pleased with what they see that I'm able to provide when it is laid on Monday. Thank you.