2. Will the First Minister provide details of the oversight that Welsh Government has over debts owed to local authorities by third parties? OAQ(5)0582(FM)

Each local authority is responsible for the collection of its debts as part of its own effective financial management processes.

I’m a bit disappointed with that answer, First Minister, as I thought you’d like to know what your local authorities are not recovering at a time when they’re claiming that austerity is depriving them of any money. I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating all the newly elected councillors at Bridgend County Borough Council, including the 10 new Conservative members, and, hopefully, the new council will be able to reply to freedom of information requests within the statutory time limit so that I can ask questions like this with full information to hand. Can you tell me how much unclaimed debt is owed to local authorities, the main sources of those debts, and the reasons that local authorities give you for not pursuing them?

I can say that, in 2015-16, local authorities collected over 97 per cent of council tax billed—the highest level since this tax was introduced. Maintaining full entitlement to support for all eligible applicants via our council tax reduction scheme has helped to mitigate rises in the level of council tax debt in Wales, and we know that council tax in Wales is far lower than in England, under a Tory Government there. And, of course, I can say to the Member that collection rates in Wales are now at 97.2 per cent; they are lower in England.

I last saw Councillor Keith Reynolds, leader of Caerphilly County Borough Council, working at his desk some weeks before he died. Would the First Minister recognise that Welsh Labour’s victory in Caerphilly county borough is a testament to Keith’s leadership, his sound financial management, and a lifetime in public service?

Well, could I join the Member in expressing my regards, of course, to Councillor Keith Reynolds’s family? I know the illness was short and, in many ways, unexpected. And, of course, I’m sure that people in Caerphilly would have recognised the work that he and so many others did over the course of the last five years.

Would the First Minister agree that the third party that owes the biggest debt of all to Welsh local authorities is the Westminster Government, which has cut over a third in spending on adult care since 2011, which has had severe financial consequences in Wales and, obviously, terrible consequences in terms of the human cost to the elderly, the sick and the disabled? If this callous Conservative Government is re-elected, as seems increasingly likely, on 8 June, we need a plan to defend Wales. Where is it? What is it? Who’s going to lead it? Because I have to say, on the evidence seen from yesterday, we are in a dire position if it’s going to be him.

Well, according to last week, it’s him. He was talking about the need for leadership, he was talking about himself. We will happily stand up for Wales. We don’t want to see a future Conservative Government walk all over Wales. And we have stood up for our people, as the election last year showed, and, indeed, in 2011. The reality is—and he is right to point out the cuts that have taken place—we have lost, since 2010, the equivalent of the entire budget for health in the whole of north Wales. Despite that, we’ve maintained health spending at 1 per cent above the level in England per head, and maintained health and social care spending at 6 per cent per head higher than in England, showing a Welsh Labour Government delivering for the people of Wales in the face of Tory austerity.