All this while household budgets have been squeezed even further and a gaping hole has been created in public finances. The new Chancellor may have undone most of the tax-cutting measures brought in on 23 September, which as we know were designed to benefit the richest, but he cannot undo the damage the mini-budget has unleashed. Let me be clear that people in Wales will be paying for the UK Government’s failures with higher taxes in the future, higher energy bills and cuts to our public services.

There are a small few who have done very well as a result of the financial market turmoil that followed the disastrous mini-budget, and a small number of people will continue to benefit. The removal of the cap on bankers’ bonuses was one of the very few measures that survived the new Chancellor’s cull. Unfortunately, the people who are benefiting from the chaos created by the mini-budget are not my constituents, who have only seen their problems multiply and are left struggling to pay their mortgages, heat their homes and feed their families.

This is a UK Government that has said that its No. 1 focus is growth, yet yesterday’s statement will do nothing to improve the economic prospects of our country. I fail to see how any of the measures announced by the Chancellor will do anything other than shrink the economy and deepen the recession. This is the very opposite of a so-called plan for growth. While the Chancellor stated the UK Government’s priority in making the difficult decisions that lie ahead will always be the most vulnerable, he has, so far, offered nothing to support them. Instead, he has prematurely cut off energy support for tens of millions of households, adding to the worry about how people will pay their bills.

The UK Government has repeatedly failed to take opportunities to improve our energy security for the future and address the climate emergency. If this Government is serious about stimulating economic growth, it must be more ambitious on investment. The Chancellor must provide the capital stimulus to invest in green energy and decarbonisation. It should not seek to cut capital spending when we are facing year-on-year cuts to our capital budget through this spending review period.

The chaos that surrounds the UK Government’s mishandling of the economy has served as an unwelcome distraction and it masks the real issues that people are facing. The UK Government needs to refocus its efforts to help those most in need. The Chancellor must take the opportunity on 31 October to provide further targeted support to help households and businesses that are struggling most in the current crisis, including people on benefits. The UK Government holds the key fiscal levers to make a real difference to the cost-of-living crisis. It must use its tax levers more equitably, including taxing the windfall gains in the energy sector.

I fear the Chancellor’s statement yesterday signalled a new era of austerity. Even before any prospective spending cuts with the Chancellor’s planned efficiency exercise, inflation has already significantly eroded our devolved budget settlement. Over the current three-year spending period, our budget will be worth up to £4 billion less in real terms than it was when it was set last year. Next year alone it will be worth £1.5 billion less. Decisions taken on where to wield the axe on public spending in Whitehall will have a material impact for our budget in Wales. As we, local authorities and other partners look again at our spending plans for next year, we are being forced into an incredibly difficult set of choices. While we cannot offer protection from the full force of the UK Government’s actions, the Welsh Government will do everything it can to help households, services and businesses through this ever-deepening crisis of the UK Government’s making. This financial year we are investing £1.6 billion in schemes that provide direct support to people, such as the £200 winter fuel support payment, and a wide range of programmes and schemes that put money back in people’s pockets—schemes like the council tax reduction scheme, free school meals and pupil development grant access, which helps families with the costs of sending their children to school.

Looking ahead, we will publish the Welsh Government’s budget on 13 December and, in doing so, we will provide a considered and careful response to the crisis, taking into account the full fiscal forecast provided by the OBR to give as much certainty as possible for our public services and partners. While our resources are limited and yesterday’s announcement will do nothing to alleviate the already challenging funding position facing the Welsh Government, our priority will be to shield the most vulnerable and create a stronger, fairer and greener Wales that safeguards the well-being of our future generations. We will know more on Halloween when the Chancellor's medium-term fiscal plan and the independent OBR forecast are published, but I'm afraid that we must now prepare ourselves for a further instalment of this horror show as a result of the UK Government's inept stewardship of the economy and public finances.