Inter-governmental Relations

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 18 January 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:43, 18 January 2022

Llywydd, I did welcome the outcome of the IGR. I was there in 2018 when it was initiated by Theresa May and the First Ministers of the time, and the Welsh Government and Welsh civil servants in particular have invested many, many hours in trying to make sure that we make that document as good as it can be. There are some accountability measures within it. It does lead to governments across the United Kingdom placing various documents and reports in front of the four Parliaments. I'm absolutely open to the point that Mr Millar makes about parliamentary bodies working together to improve accountability, but that of course would be for them rather than for any government to lead. I've welcomed very regularly the money that the UK Government has invested in sustaining the economy during the COVID crisis. I've always believed that the ability to secure vaccines for use across the United Kingdom was better done on a UK basis, although the implementation of vaccination and, of course, the programme that has made use of it have been in the hands of the different governments of the United Kingdom. All of those things I have no difficulty in acknowledging. I imagine that, in the privacy of his own committee rooms, the Member himself would recognise that this is not a good time for the UK Government, and its ability to live up to the ambitions of the IGR is inevitably compromised by the events of recent times and the way in which the UK Government has turned in on itself in order to try to find a way through the mess of its own making.