Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 25 October 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:03, 25 October 2022

Llywydd, I hope of course that the new Prime Minister will take a different approach to relations with the devolved Governments across the United Kingdom. I see a series of Welsh Conservative MPs today calling on the new Prime Minister to take that initiative, and it is the initiative for the Prime Minister to take. So, I hope very much that there will be early contact from the latest administration, and, if there is, then you can be sure that I will want to have a constructive relationship with the new Prime Minister. If I have an opportunity, there will be a series of things that I will want to put early on his list of priorities. The future of the United Kingdom itself—I'll remind him, no doubt, that the Welsh Government is the only other unambiguously unionist Government with which he will have contact, and I would want to work with him to make sure that there is a successful future for the United Kingdom. 

I want to talk to him about some very important individual issues that are important here in Wales—the future of Tata Steel, for example. When I wrote to the Prime Minister but one ago earlier in the summer, he replied to me acknowledging the seriousness of the position of Tata Steel, but saying that it would be for the next Prime Minister to make the decisions about the level of support that could be offered to the company; well, that latest Prime Minister came and went and no decision of that sort was made. So, if I have the opportunity, I will certainly be saying to the new Prime Minister that attending to that very important issue, as far as Wales is concerned, should be high on his list of priorities. And, of course, Llywydd, I will say as well that the very last thing people in Wales or across the United Kingdom need is a further dose of Tory austerity.