The Cost-of-living Crisis

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 11 October 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:39, 11 October 2022

Llywydd, I thank Joyce Watson for that, and thank her for drawing attention to the fact that today is the day of the girl. The Welsh Government has played our part, alongside Governments around the globe in that. I'm very pleased indeed to let Members know that Jaime, who's been shadowing me over the last 24 hours, is in the gallery and will be watching our proceedings this afternoon. Llywydd, of course, where opportunities arise, Ministers will want to pursue the points that we've made to the UK Government through the correspondence from our finance Minister. But not only has there been no invitation to meet the Prime Minister, but all those carefully agreed components of the inter-governmental review concluded by the last UK Government, agreed by the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, none of that is operating either. There was to have been a meeting of what's called FISC, the finance inter-ministerial committee. It was meant to happen in September; it was postponed by the UK Government. It was rescheduled for 5 October; it's been postponed again by the UK Government. Neither of those two committees—the ministerial committee and the finance committee—have met since the new Prime Minister took office. There were 11 groups set up at a ministerial level under the review of inter-governmental relations. There have been 20 meetings of those groups between March and the start of September. Not a single one of them has met since the new Prime Minister took office. It is a collapse—it's a collapse—of a set of arrangements that the last Conservative Government agreed, led and, to an extent, was making happen in the six months between March and September. We'll take whatever opportunities come our way, but the truth of the matter is that the current UK Government has turned its back not just on our economic futures, but the future of the United Kingdom as well.