1. Will the First Minister make a statement on the potential impact of the UK Government’s economic policies on public services in Blaenau Gwent? OQ58545

Llywydd, the UK Government’s policy of unfunded tax cuts for the rich will be paid for by people in Blaenau Gwent. They will be asked to cover the debts this reckless Government will rack up. Cuts to other essential public services will be the deliberate consequence of this economic catastrophe.

Thank you very much, First Minister. We woke up this morning of course to the news from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that there's an unfunded £60 billion hole in UK public finances as a consequence of decisions taken by the UK Government—not as a consequence of war in Europe, not as a consequence of COVID, but as a consequence of their own decisions. Before we'd finished breakfast, the Bank of England had announced that they were expanding the intervention to maintain some stability in markets. First Minister, do you agree with me that the conclusion we've reached is that either the UK Conservative Government is entirely incompetent on public finances and can't be trusted to run public finances, or they're doing it deliberately, as Simon Clarke indicated a few weeks ago, when he said that we need a smaller state to align with a low-tax economy—tax cuts for the rich paid for by cuts to public services for everybody else? First Minister, this Government needs to protect the people of Blaenau Gwent in the way that it needs to protect the people of Wales against this incompetence and this conspiracy against the public sector. I hope that the Welsh Government can ensure that you can do all in your powers to protect the public services in which the people Blaenau Gwent want to see investment and not cuts. Thank you. 

Well, Llywydd, I give the Member an assurance that the Welsh Government will do everything within our powers to protect people in Blaenau Gwent and in other parts of Wales from the onslaught that is coming our way. Llywydd, I don't think it is possible to overstate the seriousness facing the UK economy today. Last night, the pound slipped further on international markets, and when the Bank of England intervene and put out a statement to say that the reason they are having to intervene is because there is a 'material risk' to the UK's financial stability—the Bank of England chooses every single word with the utmost care and caution—that is not an off-the-cuff remark, Llywydd; that is a statement of the Bank of England signalling to everybody else just how serious the position is for the United Kingdom economy. 

Jim Pickard, the very respected journalist for the Financial Times, who used to cover Wales as part of his beat, summed it up last night, when asked what does all this mean, and he said it will mean these three things: mortgage rates will keep soaring, Government borrowing costs will spike, and pension funds will head back into the crisis zone. And the IFS's estimate this morning of a £60 billion cut in a single year in public expenditure means real, real cuts here in Wales. They estimate a 15 per cent cut in departmental budgets. Llywydd, a 15 per cent cut to the Welsh Government budget would be something unheard of in the deepest days of austerity, and I just want to say as seriously as I can today that if we face cuts on that scale, we are talking about thousands and thousands of people losing their jobs in public services across Wales, with all the impact that that will have on the lives of those people who rely on those services. We are facing the most serious consequences of the decisions made only a couple of weeks ago. And the answer is that the UK Government must—must—change course. It must do what Rishi Sunak said needed to be done during the leadership election with Liz Truss. What did he say? 'If we are not the party of sound money, I don't see the point of the Conservative Party.' And there's no sound money anywhere to be found under the Liz Truss Government.

Obviously, we were expecting the political rhetoric to flow today, as was expected. [Interruption.] The Member for Blaenau Gwent, underneath all of that, I'm sure is very concerned about public services in Blaenau Gwent and he didn't refer to that. For example, what's particularly challenging at the moment is the pressures in local—[Interruption.]

Can we just hear the Member, please? I think the First Minister needs to hear and we all need to hear the Member contribute—and that includes people from your own benches to be quiet, as well as Government backbenchers. Thank you.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I was talking about local public services. For example, it's a particularly challenging time for local government, as you know, with the increased service pressures they have, and the demand is particularly felt in social care, both in adult and children's services. In Monmouthshire, for instance, the unmet care need is over 2,000 hours a week at the moment. Whilst I know some of the £70 million consequential, which is, I know, a small amount, linked to the stamp duty announcement in England, will fund part of your land transaction tax announcements, there is in the region of £46 million left from that announcement that I believe is still unallocated. First Minister, I know the Government has demands on its budget, but will you consider funnelling some of that money into local government to help them cope with the ever-increasing social care pressures, because, as we all know, that is fundamental to unlocking that massive problem we've got with the underperformance of our NHS in this country at the moment?

Llywydd, Peter Fox speaks always with authority in relation to local government, given his experience in leading a local authority. He will know what it must be like for a local authority leader to contemplate a 15 per cent reduction in their budgets. And he's right that there was a consequential from changes to stamp duty land tax in England. But what he won't have had a chance, I imagine, to have seen is that, yesterday, the UK Government announced that they were reducing the budget of the Welsh Government by £70 million next year and another £70 million in the year after. So, there may have been £70 million as a consequence of stamp duty land tax over a three-year period, but, yesterday, they announced—and this is in advance of all the cuts that will come on 31 October—that our budget is to be reduced by £70 million next year and the year after. That means that the opportunities, small as they would have been, to have assisted local authorities with the very real pressures that Peter Fox quite rightly outlined were wiped away in a single letter from the Treasury.