Plenary Contributions 21/04/15

Questions to the First Minister
The Reduction in the 2015-16 Budget
13:33
Janet Finch-Saunders
First Minister, the implications of these cuts to our public services come at a time of massive uncertainty, unprecedented financial challenge and immense demoralisation across our local authorities, as a result of your Government’s chaos around local government reorganisation. Welsh local authorities are simply struggling to make prudent, effective and sound medium or long-term decisions on their spending priorities. First Minister, will you make a statement today to provide some assurances to our authorities that a definitive and deliverable plan will be presented to this Assembly before the summer recess?

13:34
Carwyn Jones / The First Minister
Yes. As we’ve said, other parties have not produced alternative proposals. We will produce our map before the summer. But could I say to the Member opposite: she complains about cuts; her party wanted to go further? They want to cut local government spending by 12 per cent—their own alternative budget, written, if you remember, on one side of A4 some three years ago. What they want to see are cuts in local government budgets, cuts in social care. They want to see increases in council tax—a 17 per cent council tax increase—to bring it to the level of England, which is what people in England pay, on average. We all know that what we have proposed doesn’t go far enough in terms of cuts, as far as the Tories are concerned, and we’ll take no lessons from them in terms of public probity.