This week’s First Minister’s Questions is the first since Rachel Reeves’ budget last week, and some opposition members think that Eluned Morgan hasn’t stood up for what is right for Wales.
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00:00Rachel Reeves' budget last week was not a positive one. She said herself that tough
00:06decisions had to be made, and she didn't want to have to give a budget in the form
00:10of the ones she did. In terms of Welsh issues, she said that they included the biggest ever
00:16real-terms increase in funding, but some Senedd members are sceptical, and wanted to see more
00:21from the UK government.
00:22And so Wales' day-to-day spending settlement is less generous than that of Scotland and
00:27Northern Ireland. There was complete silence on HS2 consequentials, with Wales' comparability
00:33factor for transport shrinking from 80.9% in 2015 to 33.5% in 2024, and calls for the
00:44devolution of the Crown Estate were ignored again. Why are we consigned to further austerity,
00:52and why did the First Minister fail her first test to fight for what is right for Wales?
00:58I'll tell you what, we fought and we won. We won £25 million for our communities, our
01:05core communities, that these guys wouldn't even ask for. And so we are very pleased with
01:12that, and the fact that we're going to get the highest uplift that we've had since devolution
01:18began, £1.7 billion, that is going to help to rebuild our public services.
01:24Specific funding for assuring safety of old coal tips was a positive, but Deleth Jewell
01:29of Plaid Cymru thinks that the scars are still there from what the coal tips represent.
01:35These coal tips stand as reminders of how Wales was exploited, how we were left with
01:40the rubbish after our wealth was taken from us. For as long as those tips exist, the
01:47shadow of that betrayal will hang over our valleys. We can't afford delays or half-measures
01:53because the risk of history repeating itself is just too awful to contemplate.