1. What is the Welsh Government doing to support local government to balance their budgets in Newport West? OQ60632

I thank Jayne Bryant, Llywydd. In addition to specific grants, Newport council will receive funding of £303 million through the 2024-25 local government settlement. This represents an increase of 4.7 per cent on the current year.

Diolch, Prif Weinidog. Last week, Michael Gove announced an additional £600 million for local authorities in England, largely aimed at the rising costs of adult and children social care. Yet, there is widespread acknowledgement that this figure is not high enough. Members in this Chamber today will recognise that local authorities across Wales are having to make very tough decisions due to the current financial situation. We've probably all spoken to councillors and constituents deeply concerned about the impact of budget pressures on services. The Welsh Local Government Association has said that it's vital for the consequential funding of Michael Gove's announcement to be delivered to Welsh councils in full so that it can be targeted at schools and delivering social care services. Prif Weinidog, what, if any, commitments have you had from the UK Government on consequentials from last week's announcement?

Well, Llywydd, there are no guarantees of any sort, and this just illustrates the unfairness of the way that funding in the United Kingdom is organised. Local government in England will now know the settlement that it has received from the UK Government. We will have to wait until the spring budget to see whether that £25 million really does arrive in Wales, or whether it's offset by other changes in our budget, which could actually mean not that we're £25 million better off, but that we're worse off than we currently believe we will be. And that would not be the first time at all that that has happened. 

So, I know that my colleague the finance Minister is sympathetic to the case that local government in Wales makes—of course she would be—because, here in Wales, we have gone on investing in our local authorities, with an uplift of 9.4 per cent two years ago, an uplift of 7.9 per cent last year, and we have honoured what we said we would do in providing 3.1 per cent in the draft budget for next year. We will have to wait, Llywydd, in a way that English departments do not have to wait, to find out whether that money is genuinely available to us in Wales.

First Minister, whopping council tax hikes are looming for many of my constituents in south-east Wales, and it's understandably causing a lot of people a lot of concern. Residents in Newport are facing a staggering 8.5 per cent increase. In Monmouthshire, locals are expecting a 7.5 per cent jump, and, in Caerphilly, residents are looking at a 6.9 per cent hike. As I told your finance Minister last week, residents are being forced to pay more at a time when household budgets are already stretched, whilst seeing local services decline. And I sincerely have a great deal of sympathy with local councils, because it's not necessarily their doing; it's, unfortunately, this Government's. Local authorities, which deliver essential services, have been pushed into a position because of your Government's lack of funding. And I know what you'll say, First Minister—there simply isn't enough money and the Welsh Government is cash-strapped. But, First Minister, do you agree with me that if your Government stopped wasting obscene amounts of money, such as £120 million on politicians in this place, £4.25 million on redundant farms for friends—which is now set to become the most expensive aviary in Wales—and £33 million on 20 mph speed limits, then there would be more money to spare to invest in and protect our public services?

Well, Llywydd, I'm used to economic illiteracy from the Welsh Conservatives, and never disappointed, am I? I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to explain to Conservative Members here the difference between capital and revenue expenditure, but they never seem to understand even that most basic fact of Government funding. I will say this, Llywydd: this Government is not issuing an instruction to local authorities in Wales to set council tax at the maximum that they can, as we hear the Government in England is now doing to its local authorities. [Interruption.] Oh, yes, we hear that they are instructing them now, that they must maximise the draw-down from council tax to make up for the failure of funding for local authorities in England. Here in Wales, we have always prioritised. You ask any council leader in Wales and any council leader in England where they would prefer to be as far as council funding is concerned, and there's only one answer: they'd much, much rather be here.