Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:57 pm on 22 November 2022.
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.