5. What discussions has the Minister had with local authorities about the expectation for them to maintain non-statutory public services following the 2022-23 budget? OQ58968

I meet regularly with all local authority leaders to discuss key issues that affect us all, including the current financial challenges. It's the responsibility of each local authority to determine how they deliver their non-statutory services, based on local priorities.

Thank you very much for that response, and you're placing the responsibility on local authorities, of course, but you're the one making the cuts. What advice do you therefore have for local authorities who are now having to decide between closing day centres for the elderly, cutting economic development programmes, closing leisure centres and libraries, reducing public transport, doing less to deal with the climate emergency, not spending on the promotion of the Welsh language and all sorts of other crucial things that local authorities do on behalf of the people of Wales? How are councils supposed to choose between these unacceptable cuts, and what advice does the Minister have for the people of Wales who will not be in receipt of these crucial services from here on in?

I'll make the point again that the Welsh Government has provided the absolute best possible settlement to local government, and I know that was recognised by local government leaders and members of local government across Wales. As I've mentioned, we're providing revenue funding of over £5.1 billion and over £1 billion of specific grants to local authorities next year, and that's a rise of 7.9 per cent. Now, that's a significant rise in the context that we're facing, with our own budget reducing in its value over the course of this Senedd term, and as I've mentioned previously this afternoon, we allocated local government in excess of the funding that we received in consequential funding from the UK Government as a result of the autumn statement, and that has come at a cost to colleagues, who have had to divert funding away from treasured programmes in their own portfolios. So, I would say that we've done the absolute best that we could for local government. We're scrutinising the budget at the moment. What I'm not hearing from colleagues on other benches are examples of areas where they would have funding diverted away from in order to provide additional funding to local government or to other priorities that they might have. But I look forward to those ideas coming forward.