Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 28 September 2022.
Absolutely. [Inaudible.]—the WLGA also does an excellent job in terms of trying to impress upon the UK Government the significant and very real challenges that local authorities are facing, and those challenges of course then feed into their communities and the real-world everyday lives of the people who they serve in those communities. The budget was absolutely devastating for ordinary people, and it just pushed more money to those people who just don't need it at the moment. It's a cost-of-living crisis. It was an immoral budget and I think most of us were surprised by the budget. I mean, the Conservatives behind me are moaning and groaning because they seem to think it was a good budget. They must be the only ones. I mean, we will have all seen the intervention by the Bank of England this lunch time, actually stepping in to protect the UK from its own Government. I mean, how that can be supported by the benches behind me I have no idea. And, of course, the verdict of the International Monetary Fund. Obviously, that's clearly extremely serious. It's almost unprecedented for it to make an intervention of that kind in the affairs of a G7 nation. They're absolutely extraordinary times, and it's just a shame that it is just so serious.