Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:11 pm on 22 March 2023.
The Welsh Government doesn't intend to introduce any legislation of that sort, because we do believe that capping an authority's budget would be a serious imposition on the responsibilities of those locally elected members. We do provide local authorities, of course, with flexibility when setting their budgets and determining their council tax levels, and that does allow them to respond to local priorities and pressures. We believe that's an important feature of local democracy and enables authorities to be accountable to their residents. Obviously, those local referenda in England are costly. Instead, we channel our funding to the front line of local government through the local government settlement so that authorities do have that greater flexibility in terms of allocating that funding according to their local priorities.