Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 30 November 2022.
Diolch, Llywydd. Good afternoon, Minister. There was reference in this Chamber last week to work by the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, scrutinising the Welsh Government's accounts for 2020-21, which found that there'd been an underspend of £526 million and, as a result, £155 million of funding allocated to Wales had been returned to the Treasury. I'm sure you'd wish to say something about that. But more recently, my understanding is that, in the last few weeks, the Welsh Treasury estimated that there's about £80 million of unallocated funding in the Welsh budget at the moment. Now, the health Minister, of course, directly contradicted that in her contribution here last week, when she said that there's currently no unallocated spending and no underspend when she was asked about the Welsh Government's budget and the current figure for the Welsh reserve. So, can you set the record straight this afternoon and give us clarity regarding the current estimate of unallocated funding and underspend in the Welsh Government budget, as it stands at the moment?