, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
We are very fortunate that we are a very small Government, and we see each other all the time. It has struck me as one of the huge differences with Whitehall particularly, but even with the Scottish Government. We all work in the same place; you bump into…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I've had a chance to look at the committee's report on the engagement that you carried out, so I've seen the work that you did at Yr Egin and Coleg y Cymoedd, and so on. Of course, I wasn't the finance Minister at the time you were doing this work. On 17…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Diolch yn fawr. I think the report will be very timely. Because we’re a new Government, there is an opportunity in its early stages to put new ideas into the mix. There’s the whole Gordon Brown report—that’s where the council of the nations and the regions is…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
My experience in the brief time I’ve been doing it is that some of the things that you would expect to be there are definitely there and working. I’ve met with the Northern Ireland finance Minister, I have a conversation with the Scottish finance Minister…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Thank you. Chair, I'll try and start with a point I often make. The period from 2010 to 2024 wasn't uniform in our relationships with previous Governments. When I became the finance Minister in 2016, I received a telephone call from Philip Hammond, the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes. Thank you. So, I raised that with him. Next week, I'll meet the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Next week, there is a FISC, Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee, meeting, so I will have a chance to raise a series of these points with him as…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I had a meeting last week with the Exchequer Secretary. So, there are four Ministers in the Treasury and the Exchequer Secretary is the fourth in line. So, I met with him last week and we talked about a number of the issues that we've talked about today, as…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Yes, of course. Thank you. Chair, at this point—and this is ahead of 30 October, when I think a number of these assumptions will change, because we will be in possession of much better information about the current Government's approach—at the moment, what we…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
That was quite a challenge.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
No, I think it's possible to discharge them both. As I say, at one stage, I was the Brexit Minister, as well as the finance Minister and the local government Minister, and that was quite a—
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I don't there is a link or an alignment of that sort. First Ministers, in having to find homes for all the different responsibilities that the Welsh Government discharges, have to find a home for many different things. So, Jane Hutt is the Trefnydd, the chief…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, that is a really interesting contribution. I'm very happy to think a bit about it and to see whether there are things that we could do of that sort. There's always a tension between keeping what is a system under huge pressure going and stable enough to…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Thank you, Peter. I said in my first answer that the responsibility of the finance Minister is to try to make sure we spend all the money that we have, but then secondly to make sure we spend it wisely, so that we’re getting the maximum impact out of the…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Okay. Thank you, Chair. So, I’ll take the first part of the question first, then. So, from what I have seen, as you know, the Welsh Government monitors the in-year position on a monthly basis. I’m expecting later today to see the latest set of data. It looks…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
No, exactly.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, I think the fiscal framework has genuinely been to the benefit of Wales. We can point to significant sums of money that came to Wales as result of it, and I was the finance Minister at the time that was negotiated. David Gauke was the Chief Secretary to…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
I was indeed.
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, I don't have any separate priorities to those of the First Minister, as set out. The job of the finance Minister is to enable the rest of the Government to achieve the ambitions and the priorities that the Government as a whole will set out. But in…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Well, the First Minister's listening exercise resulted in her statement on the floor of the Senedd last week. That statement will shape budget preparations. It will be an important strand in the way in which we will align the ambitions that Ministers will…
, Finance Committee
Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26: Pre-budget scrutiny—Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language
Good morning, Chair. I'm Mark Drakeford, the Minister with responsibility for finance and the Welsh language. With me this morning is Andrew Jeffreys, director of the Treasury in the Welsh Government; and Emma Watkins, deputy director with responsibility for…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 1
Thank you. And thank you to committee members as well.
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 1
There is stuff in the impact assessment that does refer to the UNCRC articles, but maybe I can just make sure that the committee has that in a way that's more accessible. On your second and final point, for me, this is a real test of this Bill. If we don't…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 1
Thank you, Julie. On the first point, I'll see, maybe—. Shall we just send you a note on that?
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 1
Well, I think it will be because of the concentrated expertise that it will bring to that work. As Bethan has said, we've lacked an institute that people can turn to that will have that concentrated sense of focus on this particular challenge. We know that…
, Children, Young People, and Education Committee
Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill - evidence session 1
Surely, yes.
