5. What assessment has the First Minister made of the implications for Wales of the UK Government's budget? OQ59282

The budget provided no extra funding for health, social services or public sector pay, and offered bare-minimum additional support for people and businesses. It prioritised petrol and potholes over people and pay. The dismal decade of Tory Government ends as it began, with comprehensive neglect of the needs of Wales.

First Minister, as you know, it always takes a few hours, a few days, for the dust to settle on the magic around any budget statement at the despatch box, but we now know that the International Monetary Fund has said we will have, in the year ahead, the weakest position of all G7 nations. We will have, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the highest fall in the standard of living since records began, Andrew R.T. Davies—your Government. In real terms, we are £900 million down on what was set out in the 2021 spending review. And to top it all, they've given us the whopping great uplift of £1 million in capital spend. I was standing on the side of an AstroTurf pitch with Sarah Murphy last night where £0.75 million had been spent on that one pitch. We've got £1 million to spend across the whole of Wales. Thank you very much indeed. First Minister, would you agree that this is genuinely, truly, bar none, the worst budget settlement for Wales that we have ever seen?

One way or another, I have been involved in 23 years of UK Government budgets, and I agree with Huw Irranca-Davies—I have never seen a worse deal for Wales than we saw last week. It is absolutely unfathomable to me that a UK Government, looking at the stresses and strains that the health service is under in every part of the United Kingdom, could believe that this is a budget with no extra help for health services anywhere. Can you imagine? This is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the national health service, and despite the pressures—pressures to which Conservative politicians here in the Senedd point week after week—there is nothing at all to help either the fabric of the health service, the services that are provided, or the pay of those people on whom we rely.

And as for that £1 million, it is derisory; it is absolutely derisory. The Chancellor said that this was a budget for growth. How could he have concluded that all the capital needs of Wales—the need to modernise our school system, to invest in equipment in the health service, to provide for the digital services on which the future economy of Wales relies—were to be provided for from £1 million? It is £1 million; that is the additional money that we have in our capital budget in the second year of the Chancellor's prospectus. It's simple, it's there—you can look at it in the budget papers: we have £1 million more. We are 8 per cent below where we were in capital budgets a decade ago already, and this will just push us even further down. When Huw Irranca-Davies says that this is the worst budget we've ever seen, as far as the long-term future of the Welsh economy, he could not have put it more plainly.

I respectfully disagree with the First Minister and Huw Irranca-Davies. I felt that last week's budget was one of optimism and ambition, and central to it was protecting and supporting households across Wales, indeed the whole of the UK. I particularly welcomed, as my leader did, the expanding of 30 hours of childcare in England for all under-fives. I hoped we were going to see the roll-out of something similar here, but listening to the answer earlier, we clearly are not going to. We also welcome the paying of universal credit childcare costs upfront, extending the energy price guarantee at £2,500 for three months, and freezing fuel duty. These points will ensure all areas of Wales will benefit. First Minister, can you outline what your Government will do to build on these very positive initiatives? We've heared the platitudes; we want to see real action. 

Let me repeat something that Huw Irranca-Davies said in his supplementary questions—that independent analysis of the budget says that it will lead to the highest fall in living standards since records began. Is that what the Member means by ambition? Is that the ambition the Conservative Party has for this country—that it's presided over the largest fall in living standards since records began? I don't find that a cause for optimism.