We'll move on to our next item, item 6—a statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government in response to the UK Government autumn statement and economic and fiscal forecasts. I call on the Minister, Rebecca Evans.

Diolch. Last week, the UK Government published its long-awaited autumn statement and the Office for Budget Responsibility published its forecasts indicating that we are facing the biggest fall in living standards since records began. This was a bleak statement from the Chancellor after 12 years of Conservative Government, published in the wake of the disastrous mini-budget, alongside an even bleaker economic outlook from the OBR.

Multi-year extensions to freezes to both income tax and national insurance thresholds mean that we will all be asked to pay more in taxes, increasing the tax burden to its highest level in 70 years, at a time when inflation is at its highest level in more than four decades, and we are entering what both the OBR and the Bank of England believe will be a lengthy recession. GDP is expected to shrink by 2 per cent, which will result in real and significant costs for people across the country, and the rate of unemployment is expected to increase substantially. This could result in 20,000 to 25,000 more people out of work in Wales alone. Perhaps most shocking of all is the fall in real disposable household incomes. Over the next two years, this is expected to fall by 7 per cent per person. This would be the biggest fall in history.

Last week, the Chancellor was keen to blame global events for the UK's dire financial outlook, including the pandemic and Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. While there is no denying that these have had a severe impact on our economy, the situation has been made worse by the ongoing mismanagement of the economy and public finances by the UK Government. The UK enters recession in a worse position than any of the G7 economies, and it's the only G7 country not to have regained pre-COVID levels of GDP and employment.

The UK Government has unleashed a series of economically damaging, self-inflicted shocks on our economy and country over the last 12 years, from austerity to Brexit, and the disastrous mini-budget, which created a huge hole in our public finances. The Chancellor has sought to plug that hole through a mixture of tax rises and punishing spending cuts. The vast majority of those spending cuts will come after 2024-25, delaying difficult financial decisions until after the next UK general election, and giving us pain today and pain tomorrow.

The first decade of austerity made the UK economy £100 billion smaller; widened the gap between rich and poor; made young people worse off than their parents were at their age; reduced home ownership; and created the current crisis in the private rented sector. And now, the UK Government is poised to repeat this flawed and failed experiment to fix the mistakes that it made. But we don't need austerity 2.0; what we need is investment in education and skills, business support and transport, to help boost economic growth and attract investment.

Before the autumn statement, we were facing the worst financial outlook since devolution. This remains the case. Our overall settlement over the three-year spending review period is still worth less in real terms than when it was announced last October. We will receive an extra £1.2 billion over the next two years as a result of spending decisions made in England, but our overall budget in 2024-25 will be no higher in real terms than in the current year. Our capital budget will be 8.1 per cent lower. Almost half of the increase in funding next year comes from non-domestic rates measures in England, not from extra spending on public services. The extra funding does not come close to what we need to meet the pressures across all areas of our budget, including protecting public services against the immense challenges caused by record inflation, pay pressures and energy costs. Our settlement could be up to £3 billion lower in real terms than expected, and up to £1 billion lower in 2023-24 alone.

In the face of these pressures, we must be realistic about what we can afford. We have multiple pressures and priorities that need to be accommodated or reprioritised. Funding received as a result of the autumn statement will only go so far in protecting delivery of the programme for government, mitigating the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, addressing public sector pay demands and continuing to support our humanitarian response to the situation in Ukraine. Challenging decisions and choices still need to be made, alongside ongoing consideration of the extent to which we are able to mitigate the loss of EU funding.

The capital outlook has deteriorated. While we will look to all of the levers at our disposal, we will have little choice but to scale back our capital plans and think more creatively about the funding of major capital priorities going forward. This will impact on our new Wales infrastructure investment strategy. As part of our ongoing budget preparations, we face incredibly difficult decisions. And while there are no easy choices, I remain committed to working with our partners to deliver the best possible outcomes within the funding that we have available. To be able to respond to the fiscal uncertainties, it's essential that we remain flexible and agile when making decisions regarding our future budgets. I remain committed to publishing our draft budget on 13 December.

The Chancellor did not allocate any additional funding in relation to the current financial year. Any changes to our settlement this financial year will be subject to the UK supplementary estimates process in the new year. The Chancellor has also stated there will be a spring budget, which could impact on plans for our final budget. So, despite this context, we do remain committed to continuing to work to prioritise our budgets, to shield the most vulnerable and to maintain our commitment to create a stronger, fairer and greener Wales as we prepare our draft budget for 2023-24.

Thank you, Minister, for the statement. I acknowledge that things have been difficult, as I referenced here I think the last time we spoke on these matters. However, it is clear that the Chancellor has taken decisive and welcome action to set the country on a more stable path within just a matter of weeks. The issues that we are facing are due to a combination of unprecedented once-in-a-generation global shocks, as, Minister, you've recognised—COVID and Putin's illegal war. And to respond to these things, we've seen public spending increase quickly and significantly to provide people and businesses with the support that they need. Let's not forget that, at UK Government level, around £400 billion was spent during the pandemic, supporting businesses and ensuring 14.5 million jobs. There's also been some £55 billion provided this year to help people and businesses with their energy bills—one of the largest support packages in Europe—on top of billions to help with the cost of living. But contrary to what some think, there is no blank cheque; this spending, whilst absolutely needed, has to be paid back at some point. What the Chancellor did last week was present a plan to get public finances back onto a more sustainable, stable footing. This means that difficult decisions have had to be made. Extraordinary times require significant interventions, as we saw throughout COVID.

Inflation affects us all—it makes us poorer, and it puts pressures on finances of all tiers of Government and the services they provide. As I've said before, I know what it's like to have to balance budgets during restrained public spending—levelled, I have to say, for many years by this Welsh Government. And whilst I welcome the current energy and cost-of-living support, I have always been clear that the Government has to keep an open mind to providing the support that people need as things change over the next few months. But we just simply cannot afford to keep spending almost £100 billion on debt interest alone, in part due to rising interest rates. This money would be so much better spent on public services. What was disappointing was that the shadow Chancellor in Westminster didn't propose any alternatives to the plans laid out by the Chancellor as a fix to our finances. Indeed, her response was shallow and weak, as we've come to expect, sadly, from her. And again, we've seen criticism from the Welsh Labour Ministers, without much indication of what the alternative is. One moment, the Welsh Government were up in arms about tax cuts, and threatening to re-impose income tax banding, then they're up in arms that these measures have been reversed. Like I've said before, every time the Welsh Government states its position, it's just basically the opposite of what the UK Government says—that's not particularly constructive.

I would be interested, Minister, if you could outline—[Interruption.]

No. It's not a debate.

I thought it was a debate. Sorry.

Sorry, Peter, if I can just clarify—it's not a debate, no interventions.

Oh, sorry. I thought we weren't in a debate.

No, it's a statement.

Okay. So, I would be interested, Minister, if you could outline exactly what Labour's plan is. How would a Labour Government tackle the erosive effects of inflation, which make the cost-of-living crisis worse, and bring down the national debt? Deputy Presiding Officer, there are, of course, things to be welcomed in the autumn statement, which will very much help people in these difficult times. Because, listening to the Minister's statement, you'd never think that there were positives, which people would welcome, and that the Welsh Government actually wanted. No reference at all in the statement, in these announcements, is there to those helpful things that can help the most vulnerable in society, such as the uprating of benefits and the state pension in line with inflation, as well as the significant increase in national living and national minimum wages; the £900 payment to those on means-tested benefits; the £300 payment to pensioner households; the £150 for those on disability benefit. But whilst the Minister says that the UK Government could have proposed more cost-of-living support, so too could the Welsh Government, and this is another thing that was missing from the Minister's statement.

So, Minister, what consideration have you given to using some of the consequentials provided to Wales through the autumn statement to uplift devolved grants to give people additional support? And, on the subject of consequential funding, could you explain how you are planning to allocate this in the upcoming budget? For example, will you direct the majority of further support for health and education and local government sectors, which, as you know, are under significant strain at the moment, or are you planning to spread the additional funding more evenly across departments? 

Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would like to briefly touch upon the supply side reforms that were announced by the Chancellor, which are important to get our economy moving once again. That is, changes to regulations in the five growth industries, including advance manufacturing and green industries, to better support the introduction of growth of new and emerging sectors, as well as looking at using investment zones to encourage research and development growth. 

I would be interested to know what discussions you are planning on having with the Treasury on the role that Wales already plays in hosting and growing such technologies, and how both Governments can work together to ensure that any such reforms work in the Welsh context as well as a UK context, so that we can better direct investment and ensure that all our communities can feel the benefits of this. Thank you.

Thank you very much to the opposition spokesperson for the questions this afternoon. I will just begin by reflecting again that it does seem to be the approach of the Conservative Party to entirely blame the financial situation that we're in at the moment on the pandemic and on Putin's war in Ukraine. But that's not the full picture, of course, because £30 billion of the hole that the UK Government is seeking to fill relates completely and entirely to the mismanagement of the economy through that ridiculous mini-budget. We will look back on it and—the damage it's done is just incredible. It's not just some ridiculous joke that happened by a bunch of clowns in Westminster, it's actually something that is having a real-life impact now. And we will be paying now and we will be paying long into the future for their arrogance and for the mistakes that they made.

Let's not let Brexit off the hook either, because the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed that recent data is consistent with its earlier assessment that Brexit is damaging our economy. The OBR expects that, under the deal that was agreed by the UK Government, over the long run, the UK economy will be at least 4 per cent smaller than would otherwise have been the case. Actually, the consensus amongst independent experts is that the economic costs could be even greater if the full range of impacts, many of which are difficult to quantify precisely, are included. Research that includes such impacts does find that the total costs could lie in the range of 8 per cent to 10 per cent of annual GDP. I think that we do have to be looking at the impact of Brexit, which we're only just beginning to start to feel, as part of the overall picture here as well.

What would Labour have done differently? Well, we wouldn't be in this mess had Labour been in charge because, yes, we would have had the pandemic, yes, we would have had Putin's war, but we wouldn't have had the implications of the mini-budget. So, a lot of the problems that people are being asked to pick up the tab for are entirely self-made by the UK Government. The way in which he's approached the budget also does put off a lot of the problems for the future as well. The fiscal tightening is heavily backloaded, with the vast bulk of those public service spending cuts actually pencilled in for after 2025, delaying all of the really difficult decisions until after the next UK general election. 

The Chancellor has also had to relax his fiscal mandate. He's pushed out to five years now the point at which he says he wants debt to be falling as a fraction of national income. The spokesperson talked about debt, and at around £100 billion a year by the end of the forecast period, spending on debt interest will be higher than spending on any single department in the UK Government, apart from the NHS, and that just shows again the long-term impacts that we're going to be facing as a result. 

The Member talked about some of the things that could be reasonably welcomed, at least in the first instance. The Welsh Government was calling for the increase of benefits in line with inflation. Even though the decision was taken by the UK Government to do that, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that that would still leave their real value on course to be 6 per cent lower than their pre-pandemic levels. That's equivalent to almost £500 per year for the average out-of-work person. Of course, that assumes that they are still able to access the full amount of support as they do at the moment under the energy price guarantee after next April. We've already heard about the impacts on disposable income for families: over the next two years, falling by 7 per cent. That's absolutely unprecedented, and we are going to be seeing those impacts feeding through to pressures, further pressures, on public services.

And we've also heard about the UK Government's approach to tax, and, of course, the UK Government has now announced those multi-year freezes to every major income tax or national insurance threshold, and, by freezing those thresholds, and particularly the personal allowance, the UK Government is raising income tax in now what is much more of a regressive way than if they'd just raised rates. And as more workers are now drawn into paying higher tax, a greater amount of their pay will be immediately lost, and, of course, because of the way the pay levels are here in Wales, more people in Wales are more likely to be worse off as a direct result of that particular intervention as well. 

So, in terms of our own plans, I will, of course, set out those plans when we publish our draft budget on 13 December. Now that we have those final figures from the UK Government—and I say 'final', because they could yet change ahead of or just after our final budget—we have an intensive period of work now across Government to provide colleagues with the numbers within which they'll be working and then to finalise our draft budget for publication. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Last week's autumn statement by the UK Chancellor, I think confirmed, didn't it, really, what we've feared for some time. In response to the absolute mess that they've made of the economy, the Tories have decided to unleash a new wave of austerity, with devastating consequences for communities across the length and breadth of Wales. After a decade of cuts, under investment and inequality that has already left our public services on their knees, it has plunged millions of households into poverty; it's inflicted the most prolonged squeeze on living standards since the Napoleonic wars. Once again, we're faced with a privileged clique of multimillionaires placing the burden of their hubris on the shoulders of the hard-working people of Wales. And while the Tories, no doubt—and they've already done it this afternoon—will expend much hot air claiming that they've taken difficult and necessary decisions, I can tell you that we won't swallow that Tory spin.

Let's be absolutely clear—and you can shake your head as much as you like—austerity is, and always has been, a calculated political choice. It was a political choice when Cameron and Osborne told us—do you remember—that, 'We're all in it together'. Do you remember that? All in it together, yes, whilst they were feathering the nests of their corporate backers at the expense of ordinary people. And it's a political choice now, as this out-of-control and out-of-touch Tory Government once again puts the interests of party ahead of the interests of people. And I can tell you this: we know that the consequences of your choice will have an impact on livelihoods and on lives here in Wales. So, we know that the autumn statement will have profound implications for public spending here in Wales, which I'm sure will be reflected in the Welsh Government's upcoming budget. 

But on this year, first of all, Minister, you remind us that there's no additional funding for this financial year. So, what plans do you have, then, in light of that, not just for the usual supplementary budget process and a supplementary budget, but for a wider, more fundamental recalibration of the Welsh budget for this financial year—reallocation of budgets, utilising any unallocated funds and any underspends that will be in the budget? Could you tell us a bit about your intentions for this particular financial year? 

Now, unfortunately, of course, the constraints of the current devolved settlement—however prudent and well-founded our plans here in the Senedd might be, they will always be conditional on the impulses of Westminster whilst the constitutional status quo remains. But there are some devolved measures, however limited, that could be deployed here to at least insulate the Welsh people from some of the worst excesses of this economic tempest. So, can you tell us whether the Welsh Government will be seriously exploring now the option of utilising some of your powers over the Welsh rates of income tax to generate some of the funding that we need to close the gap, the gaping hole, that has opened in front of us? And on capital funding particularly, you say, in your statement, that you will, and I quote again, 

'look to all of the levers at our disposal'.

Would you be able to expand a little bit on that? Because, clearly, borrowing is one key area, but you have lent more heavily in this spending review period on borrowing than maybe previously, so I’d like to understand where you think you can go in relation to capital funding.

Now, the current devolved settlement, as I said, is a straitjacket on the Welsh Government’s ability to respond to these UK Government fiscal events and fiscal decisions. You tell us that the Government will remain flexible and agile, but do you accept that that is quite difficult when you can only tinker, effectively, with macroeconomic decisions imposed on Wales by a Tory Westminster Government that of course we never voted for here in Wales? And if you do, then is it not time to demand that these macroeconomic levers are transferred to us here in Wales so that we can better protect our people and make sure that the UK Government stops holding Wales back?

I’m very grateful for those questions and would certainly associate myself with your comments at the start of the contribution, which set out that we are seeing what is, essentially, a new wave of austerity. We’ve barely managed to catch a breath since the last one, and it will have impacts in terms of squeezes on living standards, on increasing poverty, on increasing the number of children growing up in poverty, and, as Llyr Gruffydd said, that is a choice—austerity is absolutely a political choice, and a calculated political choice.

We know that there are other ways in which the UK Government could have responded. The Resolution Foundation has said that there’s been a 19-year downturn in wages, and the weak forecast for pay and high inflation mean that wages won’t return to their 2008 levels until 2027. Had wages grown at the same rate as before the great financial crisis in 2008 they would actually be £15,000 a year higher. And, again, this is all part of the response, really, to the way in which the UK Government has introduced austerity and is looking to do so again, which is obviously of great concern to us in terms of what it means for people here in Wales.

In terms of this year’s financial management, of course you’ll be aware that we published our first supplementary budget earlier on in this year, and it’s the intention to publish a further supplementary budget in February, but, as I’ve mentioned before to colleagues in the Chamber, we have been doing a piece of work looking across Government to see what we might have to do in terms of reprioritisation to be able to meet the pressures of inflation in this financial year, and to do so whilst protecting public services, at its core, protecting the support that we provide for the most vulnerable.

So that work is ongoing at the moment. There are tremendous pressures right across the piece, particularly in health, but also elsewhere. But, when we do come to finalising the supplementary budget, we’ll be able to provide more detail in terms of where we’ve been able to reprioritise funding from to meet some of those pressures, and what the implications of that will be. But we’re always really conscious of cumulative impact assessments and the importance of understanding the impacts that our choices have on those people who have protected characteristics, or a number of protected characteristics. So, we look through that particular lens. But, as I say, I’ll be able to say more on that when we do come to the point of the supplementary budget, but that is absolutely the kind of space that we’re in at the moment.

The First Minister, in his discussions with the Prime Minister, was able to set out a range of things that the UK Government could do that actually wouldn’t cost a lot of money—things such as abolishing standing charges on prepayment meters, support for credit unions and providing a guarantee against loss of funds to help individuals secure loans there—not terribly expensive things that UK Government could be looking to do. But he also asked that the borrowing and reserve limits agreed as part of the 2016 fiscal framework are updated in line with inflation, and that’s something that I’ve also raised with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. That seems a pragmatic thing that the UK Government could do.

On borrowing, in every year since we’ve had borrowing powers we’ve always intended to use our full borrowing powers within that financial year, but it’s usually the case that, by the end of the year, the UK Government provides us with additional funding very late on in the financial year, which means that we don’t have to borrow in that particular year. To help us account for that, in this financial year I did overprogram capital by £100 million. Of course, this was a decision taken prior to the existing inflation and existing scenarios, so it does make management this year particularly challenging. But I think it is the right thing to do, to maximise the funding that we do have available to us. But we’ll continue, and I know others will continue, to make the case that we should have an increase in our annual and aggregate borrowing limits, and we support the arguments that have been made by, I know, members of the previous Finance Committee that we should have prudential borrowing limits here in Wales, so that the Senedd can agree what's an appropriate level of borrowing and agree our repayment plans. And I think that still remains the right way forward. 

On Welsh rates of income tax, of course, we consider this every year. It just feels that this year there seems to be much more interest in it, bearing in mind everything that's been happening across in Westminster, and also the extreme pressures that households are under. So, yes, of course, we always consider the levers that are available to us, but we do so being mindful of people's overall tax burden. So, you will have heard me say at the start of the statement today that the tax burden is at a 70-year high, and, obviously, we've heard what the impacts will be in terms of disposable income on households. So, when we do take those decisions, we're mindful of the wider context, including council tax and what local authority leaders are telling us about how they might need to respond to using that particular lever as well. So, it's a decision taken in the round, but we will provide the Senedd with those decisions, alongside the draft budget, on 13 December.

I welcome the Minister's statement. I sum the Westminster Government's autumn statement up as very disappointing, but not disastrous. After 12 years of Conservative Government in Westminster and a decade of austerity, the UK is in a deep recession and households are facing the biggest fall in living standards on record—the 'just managing' have become the 'just not managing'. The £1.2 billion over two years additional funding for the Welsh Government will not fill the big budget gaps. Does the Minister agree that the challenge for Welsh Government is to use the money wisely, concentrating on key outcomes, not on fiscal inputs? In a recession, the challenge is to grow the economy. That means greater concentration on high-skill, high-wage sectors and increasing skills, a move, I would suggest, to implementing endogenous growth theory. Finally, on capital, has the Minister thought of using capital receipts? 

Thank you very much for raising those particular points, and I absolutely agree that it is the case that we should be looking to use the money wisely, and to be thinking particularly about what the outcomes are in terms of the decisions that we make, which is why it's important now to take this amount of time that we need to get under the figures that were provided to us after the statement on Thursday. And those come through in a series of spreadsheets and additional supporting documentation, so we need to really get under that to understand precisely what the consequential funding relates to. There are often very, very immediate requests for us to provide reassurances of certain levels of consequential funding as a result of those decisions on the part of the UK Government, but we are very firm that we do need to spend some time getting underneath those particular issues to understand, but also to understand the negative consequentials. Because people are always very keen to talk about the positive consequentials and to ask for the fair share of that, but they're probably less keen to ask for the fair share of the negative consequentials. We already know that we will be required to be £70 million worse off next year and the year after as a result of the UK Government's decision in respect of national insurance contributions for employers. So, again, that's something that we have to factor into our particular ways of thinking as well. 

On capital, we've been really keen to impress the UK Government on this issue, because I've talked today about how our capital budget is shrinking over the period of time ahead, which is obviously a real worry. But then, when you do look at what some of the experts are saying—the National Infrastructure Commission, the growth commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—all of them are saying that, in a time when you want to grow the economy, you need to be investing. You need to be investing in human capital—so, investing in skills, as Mike Hedges says—and also investing in green infrastructure—so, investing in green energy and so on—and having that particular focus that Mike Hedges talks about in terms of the high-wage sectors and the opportunities for us to grow in those areas, which will put us on the world stage and make us attractive to investors, whilst also nurturing our own talent that we have here in Wales. 

So, absolutely, that's the kind of space that we need to be in. The capital settlement does make it harder for us to operate in that space, but we are looking, as I say, at all the ways in which we can potentially maximise our capital. 

Minister, on top of hearing that the modest additional funding for social care and schools will not cover the funding gap, capital funding continues to be cut as well, and there's no consequential for the high speed 2 line for our railway infrastructure, which is concerning. The UK Government also had an opportunity to invest in public services, to grow the economy that way, by investing in jobs, in teaching, in social care, planners—we needed planners as well—and we must remember this when the Welsh Conservatives come along with their shopping lists. I notice there are only three here now; there were four just before, but they've gone.

Councils are facing a funding gap of £802 million in the budget as well, so they've been forced to take impossible decisions, which will profoundly impact on our services and people's health. Minister, the headline was that there would be a £1.2 billion extra for Wales, but do you agree with me that the reality is that this would be totally negated, swallowed up, by rising inflation, energy bills and pay costs, created not just by Putin's war, but also Brexit and the UK Government's decisions? We talked earlier about, under Truss, a £30 billion black hole created. So, I'm deeply concerned about that, and just your views on that, and getting the truth out there. Thank you.

Yes, I'm really grateful for those points, and Carolyn Thomas always makes a strong defence and a strong case for local government. I had the opportunity to meet with local government leaders and chief executives yesterday morning, to talk through the implications of the budget, and again, they were making those very, very strong cases in terms particularly of social care, education and all of the pressures across the services that they provide, and talking about the implications for delivery if that funding gap is not met. So, I think it's helpful that we do now have that overall picture in relation to consequentials.

It is important as well to recognise that, although we don't have to obviously do the same thing here, it is helpful if people have a picture of what the consequentials relate to across the border in England. So, 44 per cent of those consequential moneys actually relate to a new non-domestic rates scheme, which the UK Government is introducing across the border, so obviously we're looking very closely at that. It in part includes transitional support for those businesses that are seeing an increase in their bills, as they move to the new ratings list, because the Valuation Office Agency has just completed a revaluation. So, again, we need to look at the implications for that for us here in Wales. But of the consequentials next year, there are £666 million; in England, that's £294 million in relation to non-domestic rates. And the year after, we have £509 million consequentials, and the figure that relates to non-domestic rates in that year is £146 million. So, I think that that does show and gives a bit of colour to the funding that we've received.

That said, I know that you've also been very keen that we look at other ways to help local authorities, such as potentially moving more funding from the specific grants into the revenue support grant—that's something we're actively looking at at the moment. Capitalisation of some costs has been something that we've been asked to explore again, which is what we're doing, and also local authorities have talked to us about the extreme pressure that they and their officers are under in so many ways at the moment, responding to the cost-of-living crisis. So, they've asked us if there are things that we could look at potentially delivering over a longer period of time to release and relieve some of that pressure. So, again, that's something that we're actively looking at at the moment.

One question: given that the March 2010 budget statement by the last UK Labour Chancellor, Alistair Darling, stated that the scale of the deficit meant the UK didn't have enough money—defined as austerity—and he was therefore cutting borrowing, spending and growth forecasts; given that current inflation rates are higher in 23 European countries, and 16 out of 27 EU member states, than in the UK; given that the International Monetary Fund has forecast that half of the eurozone countries, at least, are heading for recession; and given that the UK central bank interest rates are lower than in many major economies, including the US and Canada, wouldn't only a very silly-billy claim that the current cost-of-living crisis was made in Westminster?

That was a very selective contribution.

I agree with Joyce Watson on that particular point. But, yes, I think that it's all very well quoting some selective facts, but, no, it is an absolute fact that the mini-budget cost this country, cost all of us, everybody in Wales, billions of pounds, and that is an absolute fact. That was just a direct result of the absolute arrogance of the people who were making those decisions at the time. We all have to make—[Interruption.] They're gone, but they've left an awful long tail of trouble behind them. And, you know, the International Monetary Fund had plenty to say about the UK Government's mini-budget as well. It's absolutely extraordinary for them to intervene in the way that they did, so I think that that judgment there is very clear as well. We can look at the way in which the various economies have been moving, but we're entering a recession now in a worse place than any other G7 country; we're the only one that hasn't recovered its pre-pandemic levels of national income and employment, so clearly we're in a much worse place to ride out what is a storm that is being felt in different ways in different places.

Finally, Rhianon Passmore.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. I agree with my colleagues Joyce Watson and Carolyn Thomas. This unfine economic mess that we're in is not just purely the fault to be laid at Putin's war. 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, today—today—has reported that the UK is one of the worst performing economies in the world amongst the richest economies. So, I fail to know which part of that doesn't sink in. I'm quite happy to send the report across to the party opposite. It's the first assessment of the UK economy by a major international institution following the Conservative UK Government's first Liz Truss mini-budget fiasco, and now the further public sector Sunak attack plan. The marking of this homework purely puts the UK at the bottom of the class. I'm quite happy to circulate the report.

Rishi Sunak is now one of three UK Prime Ministers so far in 2022, and one of four Chancellors in 2022. So, it's neither strong nor stable. And whilst the Prime Minister will feature—

You do need to ask your question now.

—in future trivia pub questions, his policies of austerity are not trivial. 

My question—I will come straight to it, Deputy Llywydd: what more can the Welsh Government do to mitigate this misery being inflicted unrelentingly on the people of Islwyn and Wales by this UK Conservative Government's political choices?

I'm very grateful for the chance to conclude the statement this afternoon by setting out some of the things that the Welsh Government will do to support the most vulnerable and to protect citizens here in Wales, because that really is the job that's ahead of us now as we start to finalise and formalise our budget for laying on 13 December. It is the chance that we have to take to do our very best for people, to target the support to the most vulnerable and to prioritise our public services. Both of those things are absolutely necessary.

Already in this financial year, we've invested £1.6 billion in schemes to provide direct support to people, such as the £200 winter fuel support payment. Let's remember that that was only available here in Wales, and available twice in the calendar year. And we've also provided a range of programmes that put money back into people's pockets at the time when they need it most, including our council tax reduction scheme, free school meals, and pupil development grant access, for example, which helps families with the cost of sending their children to school. So, we can absolutely provide the reassurance and the guarantee that our budget will be built on our strong values of being fairer, stronger and greener, and that's the work that we have ahead of us now in the coming weeks.

I thank the Minister.