Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservatives spokesperson, Peter Fox. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, can I, firstly, congratulate you on retaining your position or your portfolio within the Government. I know it's changed a bit, but I wish you well. We heard at length yesterday from the First Minister about his priorities: reduced NHS waiting lists, support for children and early years, educational excellence, better, greener jobs, and improved transport links. And, again, we heard the Welsh Government claim they haven't enough money, albeit that they've had the biggest settlement ever this year. So, Cabinet Secretary, how are you planning to fund the new focus on these priorities? What areas do you see being disinvested in to reprioritise resource to the new priority areas? Will we see future new consequentials going to the areas that they were envisaged to go to? 

I suppose the first thing to say there is to thank you for your warm comments, and I very much hope that we continue in our respective roles, because I enjoy the constructive relationship that we do have.

In terms of consequential funding thath comes to Wales, it's a really fundamental principle that it is for the Welsh Government then to decide how to use that consequential funding in line with the priorities and the pressures facing the Welsh Government. And what you saw in the budget very much was a refocusing already of funding towards the top key priorities of people in Wales, and particularly so in respect of the NHS. I've referred already this afternoon to the fact that the NHS here in Wales will see an increase in its budget of more than 4 per cent. But, even so, the NHS is going to have to undertake some significant work to reduce its projected deficits and to continue to improve productivity, and so on, within the NHS. And we do have all of those pressures that they're seeing in many countries at the moment, particularly around those pay pressures. So, the NHS and public services will continue to be our priorities, and I very much look forward to moving forward with the new Cabinet Office role that the First Minister has asked me to lead on, and that will be very much about having that laser-like focus on the First Minister's and the Welsh Government's priorities in terms of ensuring delivery.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for that response. I didn't expect you really to divulge where you might disinvest from, but you clearly will need to. So, it follows then that the Government will have to use its resources wisely. However, to date, often we see an ill-thought-out process for finance allocation. Cabinet Secretary, focusing in for a minute on the health service, as you've already said, it's now a higher priority, and I'm sure you will have a focus on performance management for your new Cabinet Office. Can you tell us how you will demonstrate to the Senedd that moneys are achieving best value? We've seen £975 million recently go into the health service, which is welcome, but how do we know the money is being used well? Do you, Cabinet Secretary, agree with me that we need a fundamental review of our health system to make sure we get the best outcomes for the investments we put into it?

I think there are a range of things to say there, not least to say that everybody who is involved in the public sector has that responsibility to manage Welsh public money effectively, whether that's individual Ministers managing the funding within their own portfolios, officials providing advice, people working in the public sector more widely, and even insofar as people managing their own time—in that sense, they're also managing Welsh public money. So, it's really important that everybody feels that they are a true stakeholder and that it is their responsibility to manage that Welsh public money effectively. I think that how we go about some of this monitoring and evaluation is, obviously, absolutely critical in terms of understanding whether those things that we set out to achieve in the first instance have been achieved and what lessons we can learn on the way. A lot of that goes on across all kinds of different programmes across Government to ensure that we're able to do that. Again, the research that we've undertaken, the research that we commission, is really important in terms of demonstrating the value of what we do, and then learning for the future to do things potentially different in future. Things such as our national milestones are really important in terms of understanding to what extent we are making those steps along that journey in order to deliver for people in Wales. Again, that's something that is critical to the work of the Government.

Thank you again for that, Cabinet Secretary—that's reassuring. I think we in this Senedd will want to have that deeper reassurance that, for every £100 million we put into something, we're getting £100 million-worth of value and not £90 million-worth of value. That's where performance management is so fundamentally important to any organisation, and I know you agree with that. 

Yesterday, the First Minister didn't mention the wider economy, other than the green economy. One of the key planks of our Welsh economy, as we've already heard, is the tourism sector, an area that is really struggling and hasn't really been supported by your Government as it has elsewhere in the UK. With this in mind, Cabinet Secretary, what consideration has the new Government given to changing its direction when it comes to taxation policy affecting businesses? Will you increase support for the hospitality, retail and tourism sector, and perhaps withdraw from the planned damaging tourism tax that we discussed earlier?

I'm not sure I would agree with the characterisation that we are not a Government that supports the tourism sector. The Welsh Government has ploughed significant millions of pounds of funding into the tourism sector in a whole range of ways and schemes, often led through the economy department itself.

In terms of the retail, hospitality and leisure sector in particular, colleagues will know that those businesses will benefit from a 40 per cent reduction to their rate liabilities in this financial year. They weren't planning on anything, because it was always the intention that that time-limited, COVID-related fund would come to an end, but we've been able to extend that this year. But, let's remember that around 20 per cent of businesses are actually liable for their full bill; the rest will receive some degree of support. Around half of small businesses, actually, pay nothing at all in rate relief, and that's because we are ploughing around £0.3 billion into our rate relief for business in this financial year, and that is a really significant amount of money. So, I think that we do recognise the importance in that space.

I’ve already responded in relation to your colleague’s question about our plans for the tourism levy. We are continuing with that work, and I hope to say more, I expect, in the autumn term. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. I congratulate you on your reappointment to the finance portfolio. We may have our political differences at times, but it's heartening to see some much-needed continuity in that brief, especially given the challenging fiscal climate, not to mention the staggering churn of personnel that has taken place within the UK Government over recent years, which you referred to earlier.

The Easter recess coincided with the turn of the financial year, and as such, it’s an ideal opportunity to take stock of the position that the Welsh Government finds itself in, and to reflect on the situation that unfolded over the previous 12 months. It’s fair to say that the last financial year was characterised by an unfortunate degree of uncertainty with regard to the Welsh Government’s finances, in particular the rebudgeting exercise that took place in October, which caused a great deal of anxiety for local government, councillors and various third-party stakeholders alike. While we acknowledge the severity of the erosion of the Welsh Government’s spending power as a result of factors outside their control, this does not excuse the unhelpful lack of clarity that accompanied this unprecedented in-year shift in resources, as well as the apparent absence of robust strategic foresight to deal with funding pressures.

It’s also worth emphasising that the previous financial year marked the fifth year in succession that the Government failed to observe the cross-party protocol on the budget-making process. I sincerely hope, therefore, with the clean slate of a new financial year, that we look forward to more constructive and transparent governmental engagement with the Senedd on spending plans. On this basis, therefore, could the Cabinet Secretary confirm whether the the Welsh Government received any additional funding from the UK Treasury towards the end of the previous financial year, and if so, when was it informed of the availability of such funds?

I'm grateful for those questions, and also for the kind comments at the start. Again, I look very much forward to continuing to work with you. We do have a very constructive working relationship, with the appropriate level of challenge, but also a keenness to work together where we do have areas of common interest. So, I look forward to continuing that.

In terms of uncertainty, last year was characterised by a great deal of uncertainty, but I think we have to remember that these spending plans that were introduced were introduced at a time when we weren’t seeing these levels of inflation. We couldn’t have envisaged the situation that occurred in respect of Ukraine and the impact that that had on the wider economic picture across the globe. So, there are things that occurred that we couldn’t, I don’t think, have reasonably seen coming. But we did take action as early as we could in the financial year. So, before the summer, we were getting those early figures through for the start of the financial year. We understood how enormous the challenge was going to be, and we worked right through the summer, then, to deal with that, and I was able to say more in the autumn term as to what the changes would be to our spending plans. So, we did act early, and you’ve seen other Governments in the UK having to take action as well as a result of the impacts of that record high inflation.

In terms of the budget timescale, it is a matter of regret for us that we haven’t been able to provide the details of the budget earlier on in the financial year before the budget. We’ll continue to try and improve that situation, but I’m really concerned about what this year will mean in the sense that we have a potentially late General Election. What will that mean for our budget and the certainty that we can provide to local authorities and the rest of the public sector? It’s my intention to engage as closely as I can with the Finance Committee and share any intelligence that we have on that with you in terms of when we can plan for the budget. We are planning a whole range of scenarios at the moment based on when a general election might be, so that whenever things do become clear, at least we’ll be ready to move very quickly. I’m happy to share a bit more of that detail with you.

And then, in terms of end-of-year funding, we did have the supplementary estimates coming through, and as we discussed in the Finance Committee, there was a large discrepancy in those supplementary estimates, which changed by quite a large figure right at the end of the financial year. That was unfortunate as well. It did mean, though, that we received quite a significant amount of funding at the end of the year, and the truth is there are decisions that we would have taken perhaps differently, I think, had we have known that we were going to have that additional funding late on in the year. So, some of that activity that you've described, which we undertook across the summer and then announced in October, might not necessarily have had to happen had we known what the picture was going to be like at the end of the year.

Thank you for that response. 

I'm a little concerned that the Government knew—. We knew about some of the money that was concerned, but not the quantum that was being made available. A cynic might be inclined to view a little bit of hoarding some of that money back until the new First Minister was in place before making some decisions. The reason this matter is so pressing is because of the recent suspension of planned industrial action by the British Medical Association over junior doctors' pay. According to the First Minister himself, the Welsh Government's negotiation position changed materially at the end of the financial year as a result of updated calculations at the end of the financial year by the UK Treasury.

We, of course, welcome the resumption of talks with the BMA and hope that it will lead to a satisfactory resolution of a perennially undervalued junior doctor workforce, but it's very disappointing that we're having to learn about these material changes via the media, rather than being provided with the relevant details directly from Government in a timely manner. I appreciate that the new First Minister might not want to focus on certain financial matters, but I would urge the new Cabinet to pledge to be upfront with the Senedd on its resourcing capacity.

I'd be grateful, therefore, if the Cabinet Secretary could outline what proportion of the updated offer to junior doctors will be comprised of additional funds from the UK Treasury, and whether she expects any adjustments to the Government's spending plans for 2024-25 as a result of the revised offer.

Just to be very clear, there's been no material change to the Welsh Government's financial position since the supplementary estimates. I do have to object to any suggestion that we were holding back any funding so that the First Minister could have those positive discussions with the doctors' representatives. That absolutely is not something that we would dream of doing. So, I just want to reassure people on that. There's been no material change at all since the supplementary estimates, but we do have the main estimates coming shortly, so we should see whether that will provide any probably small amount of additional funding as well. I can't, obviously, go into discussion on the detail of those negotiations, but what I will say is it puts us back into a very uncomfortable place as we start the financial year, knowing the pressures that we have across the board.