Mark Drakeford
Welsh Labour · Wales
“Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, the Member can never see a top without wanting to go over it. And she, as usual, didn’t disappoint us this afternoon. Her conspiracy-minded ideas of how a visitor levy came about wouldn’t bear any examination.”
“I agree entirely with the points that Mike Hedges makes, Llywydd, and it’s not just that I agree with him, but the research published as part of the preparation of the Bill, independent research by Bangor University that looks at the experience of visitor levies introduced elsewhere, bears out exactly what Mike Hedges says.”
“I'd just say to Darren Millar that there are many causes that we talk about on the floor of this Senedd where anger is a justified response, but a modest tourism levy is not one of them.”
“The Bill does exactly what I set out in my introduction, Dirprwy Lywydd. It offers local authorities a permissive power that they can draw down when they make an assessment that this would be the right thing to do in their local circumstances.”
“I thank Joyce Watson, Dirprwy Lywydd. I take what she says particularly seriously on this Bill, given her own direct experience of working and living in a high-impact tourism part of Wales. I thought she captured very well indeed that sense of proportion that has been very absent in some other contributions here this afternoon.”
“The law will be clear, it will tell them the things for which they are able to use funds raised through the visitor levy, and there will be a reporting mechanism through which they can be held to account. That will, I think, ensure that they do just as we would expect. And, in the end, they face their electors, as we do here.”
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“Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, I don't know where to begin. Of course, we certainly did not inherit the fastest growing economy; we inherited an economy that was on its knees as a result of starvation as a result of 14 years of austerity. Let me simply deal with the coal tips issue—”
“As I've said in answering earlier questions, if the current system is to be reformed, it will have to be by the agreement of all four component parts of the United Kingdom and nobody should think that that is going to be a straightforward or easy thing to bring about.”
“Well, I thank Alun Davies for both of those points, Dirprwy Lywydd. I agree with him about the financial framework. It's there in Labour's manifesto, it doesn't actually cost the Treasury anything, it just means that we are better able to use the money we have in the most efficient and effective way. Though, Welsh Government has long argued for the reform of Barnett and its replacement by a needs-based formula; it's there in 'Reforming our Union', which has survived a number of First Ministers since it was first published. And we will continue to make that case with our UK colleagues, but not just our UK colleagues.”
“I think I did try to answer it when Peter Fox asked that question, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'll try again. The Treasury has said today that there will be additional funding for public sector workers to cover the costs of employer national insurance contributions. It will use the ONS definition of what is a public sector worker, and it will provide full funding to deal with the national insurance contributions of employers in those circumstances, and that is above and beyond the £1.7 billion that I've talked about this afternoon.”
“Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm very happy to confirm that the £25 million is outside Barnett. The Welsh Government made a case to the Treasury for three-year funding for coal tip safety. I failed to answer the point that Heledd Fychan made on this, so I'll answer it now, if I could, which is that we do intend, of course, to pursue years 2 and 3 in the spring budget. The Chancellor was clear this was a budget for one year, there'll be a further two years of revenue and three years of capital in the announcement she makes in the spring, and we will continue to pursue that full £91 million over three years, which we put to the Treasury for coal tip safety purposes.”
“I thank James Evans for those important points. They are important points. I give you an assurance that they will be discussed within the Cabinet as we come to deploy the resources available to us, and I've heard very clearly the points he's made this afternoon.”
“Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank Hannah Blythyn for that. I said in opening that I'm not dealing with the way in which the Welsh Government will deploy the resources that come our way this afternoon, but I hear very much what she said about social care. I heard very much what Peter Fox said the week before recess about the need to think of the health and social care system in the round in the way that we invest in it. I'm looking forward to meeting our local authority leads in the next week or so to hear directly from them about the pressures that, undoubtedly, they face and how we can begin to help them on that road to recovery as well.”
“Diolch yn fawr i ddechrau i Heledd Fychan am beth ddywedodd hi am domenni glo ac un neu ddau o bethau eraill doedd dim cyfle gen i i ddweud amdanynt, fel Horizon, a gwaed, ac yn y blaen.”
“In those days, exactly the regime that is proposed now was in place, and when I say that the broadest shoulders have to bear some of the burden, I do not think that many Welsh citizens will believe that paying half what any other citizen would pay in inheritance tax, on estates where practically they will need to be worth £2 million before you need to begin that, and where you have 10 years to make that payment, I don't think there will be many Welsh citizens that feel that is an intrinsically unfair deal.”
“Three quarters of all estates claim for assets below £1 million, and as such, when probate was being considered, those estates paid no inheritance tax at all. Indeed, across the whole of the United Kingdom, there were just 463 claims for agricultural relief that were more than £1 million. This is why Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has concluded that the changes will affect a remarkably small number of some of the most valuable farms. Those are the facts of the matter. We've heard here across the Chamber some of the most alarmist talk you can imagine about a tax that will bring the position of farms back to where they were in the years of the Thatcher Government.”
“Two further questions from the opposition lead on the budget, Dirprwy Lywydd. As far as farms are concerned, we've heard a great deal about this already today. Let me just repeat what the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury said in the House of Commons last week, and this is actual data. There's no spin in this at all. This is what the facts of the matter are, because we are looking back here to the latest figures that are available. We're not projecting into the future; we're looking at what the actual facts were. So, the year for which data is most recently available is 2021-22. Where farming assets were concerned, the median value of assets declared as part of the winding up of estates was £486,000.”
“If it was such a disastrous decision, how come, for 13 years, his party sustained that position? It's not a disastrous decision for most businesses in Wales, and the Chancellor's decision to raise employment allowance means that, for many, many of the smallest businesses here in Wales, there will be no impact from the rise in national insurance contributions at all. Peter Fox asked me a particular question about national insurance contributions from public sector employers. The UK Government has said today that it will use the Office for National Statistics' definition of a public service employee, the same definition used by the last Government, and will provide funding to the public service to cover the costs of national insurance contributions for those workers.”
“The Chancellor’s decision to borrow more and to redefine the way in which we think about debt was described by the Financial Times as 'moderately radical'. All the Chancellor has done is, instead of simply counting the liabilities that we have as a country, she counts the assets that we get when that investment is made. It is the way in which public debt is understood in many other countries of a comparable sort, and it allows the Chancellor to make those investments that will make such a difference here in Wales and will allow businesses to be able to thrive. I heard everything that Peter Fox said about national insurance contributions. I just remind him that all the Chancellor has done is to return national insurance contributions to where they were for 13 of the 14 years in which his party was in power. That is all she has done.”
“Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, of course I disagree with Peter Fox in almost every way. We have a different approach on these benches to the one that was followed in the last 14 years. We believe that we have to rescue the UK economy from the state it had got into as a result of the policies of austerity, in which we have had low wage growth, low productivity, low growth, and an economy of the size of the United Kingdom simply cannot have that as its ambition for the future. Instead, we saw a prospectus on Wednesday of last week that lays a path to putting this country back on track to economic growth and, as a result, the investment that we will need in our public services will become available to us.”
“In 14 years of the last Conservative Governments, the annual uplift in capital available to the Welsh Government accumulated to the uplift we have now received in a single year. Now, that additional capital will not fill every hole or undo all the damage inflicted on the fabric of our public services, but it is a different world to the one we had learned to fear under the last Government. In the March budget of this year, Jeremy Hunt provided an extra £1 million of capital to meet every need of Wales—to repair schools, to build new hospitals, for transport, for new homes and in every other aspect of Welsh life.”
“To return then to the facts of last week’s budget, as a result of the Chancellor’s statement, the Welsh Government will receive an additional £774 million in revenue for 2024-25, to include the cost of public sector pay deals already agreed in the current year. And we will receive an additional £49 million of capital. For next year, there are further increases of £695 million in resource and £235 million in capital. I should just pause there for a moment, Dirprwy Lywydd, to let that last fact sink in: £235 million in additional capital expenditure. That is a real-terms 7 per cent increase in a single year. That compares with 0.5 per cent a year on average over the last 14 years.”
“There is more to be done and, in the second part of the Chancellor’s comprehensive spending review, we will learn more of her plans in the spring. But last Wednesday was a very good start—a clean break with the failed policies of the past, and an equally clear path to a better and fairer future. Dirprwy Lywydd, I want to be clear that I will not be dealing today with any Welsh Government decisions on the use of those resources that are now available to Wales. That will be for our budget-making process, the timing of which has been agreed with the Finance Committee, and where there are rights of the Senedd to be respected in that regard. That process will culminate when I publish the draft budget on 10 December.”
“Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. The UK budget presented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week represents a step change in the management of the UK’s financial affairs. The first female Chancellor in our history faced and met three key challenges: to place day-to-day spending on a sustainable footing; to start repairing the damage done to our public services over 14 years of Conservative Government; and to reform the approach to capital expenditure so that, in the words of the Chancellor, the country can invest, invest and invest in the conditions that create future economic growth and prosperity. Dirprwy Lywydd, of course, it was never going to be possible to repair 14 years’ worth of damage within the first 14 weeks of a UK Labour Government.”