Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 21 June 2022.
Llywydd, as I have explained, for us to put up the wages of people, as we would like to, as they deserve, we would have to take that money from some other part of the Welsh Government budget, and Members here will know just how stretched that budget is. It's worth £600 million less today than it was on the day that the Chancellor declared it back in November. The answer is that the UK Government has to come to that table, has to be prepared to fund those settlements properly, and then people who work in our public services will be able to be paid in the way that they deserve and we would wish to see.