“As the Minister said, the Conservatives have given us a decade of austerity, a botched Brexit and Liz Truss. Taxes are the highest since the 1940s, but public services are starved of cash. Any extra over the last three years has fallen into the black hole of inflationary pressures. The settlement isn’t enough to manage the pressures we’re facing as an older, sicker population with higher inflationary pressures and people are at risk of being made homeless as they’re unable to manage with the cost-of-living crisis.

Councils are in a dire situation; they’ve carried out all the cost-savings that they can; rationalising and restructuring, increasing fees and charges, including council tax. They may scrape through this year borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, causing devastation in the communities they have tried to protect. I know that some are relying on a change of UK Government with an end to austerity, which may come too late, as a late election may come this year, but they’re also planning section 114 notices and bankruptcy if nothing changes for next year. And it’s not just the councils here; six councils in England have filed for bankruptcy and at least six others are considering it. Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement was the final nail in the coffin for councils, with him saying that the UK Government wanted a smaller public sector, even more productivity and efficiency; but there is nothing left to give.

The Prime Minister reiterated it recently, saying that benefits will again be under attack as he said he wants people to make working pay, but most people on benefits are working. Many people rely on benefits and public subsidies throughout their lives without realising it; whether it’s child benefit, council tax reduction schemes, pension tax credit, farm payments, bus passes, they’re all subsidies.

And although we shouldn’t be fighting over the crumbs, I will be asking the Minister to look at the funding formula again. Being in the bottom quartile over many years does have a cumulative impact, and I do question why Welsh Government are using current data for younger people but data that is over a decade old for older people, which then impacts on spending for social healthcare. All data should be refreshed and up to date, and I ask the Minister if that could be looked at.

Council tax used to be 24 per cent of the budget; the rest came from Government. Now it’s 30 per cent of the budget. Less money from UK Government to devolved Governments in real terms equals fewer services and higher council taxes to close the gap. Councils are asking if the fire service levy could be shown separately to council tax—it would help them.

If funding had kept pace with growth in the economy since 2010, the budget for Wales would be £3.5 billion higher. The amount Welsh Government can spend on capital projects such as buildings, roads and broadband is limited by the UK Government, and so is borrowing. Broadband and railway infrastructure are not devolved, and are not fairly funded. But time and time again, money seems to be found down the back of the sofa for England, and without consequentials for Wales. There needs to be greater transparency. I noticed that the Department for Transport recently published funding for London boroughs to resurface roads, thanks to redirected HS2 funding, saying that it’s part of the Network North transport plan. So, where’s the funding for Wales and our network? In Wales, we do need to be honest when there is no funding for roads. When it was decided to review the building of some roads under climate change, saying that that funding will go into the maintenance of existing ones and public transport, we should be honest and say that there is no money from UK Government.

We desperately need more money put into the housing support grant to prevent people becoming homeless. That is desperate. We need to be dealing with the climate and nature emergency—that’s desperate. But we should not be fighting over crumbs of the budget for public services when it’s too small to start with. We should be fighting for an end to 15 years of austerity and an end to cuts to public services.”