QUESTIONS to the Welsh First Minister returned today after the recess with Senedd members queuing up to quiz Eluned Morgan on the Westminster Budget.
Welsh Conservative leader Andrew Davies accused the Labour Party of breaking promises when it changed the inheritance tax for farms worth over £1 million.
The First Minister rejected the accusation and said the Conservatives had been scaremongering.
“There will be a very small proportion of farmers in Wales that will be impacted by that inheritance tax,” she said.
Ms Morgan raised the temperature further by telling the opposition leader to declare his interest as a farm owner himself.
Mr Davies said a further betrayal was the threshold for employers paying National Insurance had been reduced to £5,000, which would impact on part-time workers who do not currently pay it.
Plaid Cymru’s Peredur Owen Griffiths and Welsh Conservative Joel James said the employers’ National Insurance increase would hit the charitable sector hard.
The FM said the employment allowance had been doubled to £10,500, but her officials needed time to analyse the actual impact.
Plaid’s Sioned Williams said employers will foot the bill to fill the country’s financial black hole, rather than getting billionaires to shoulder that burden.
The FM pointed out that 2 per cent of businesses will be paying three-quarters of the amount raised through National Insurance, but smaller businesses would be compensated by the uplift in the allowance.
Delyth Jewell, who was standing in for Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, said: “Last week’s Budget was a missed opportunity, resulting in continued austerity, inequality, poverty, and hardship for millions of people and leaving our public services at breaking point.”
Ms Jewell said those were the words of Beth Winter resigning from the Labour Party.
The FM said Wales had won £25 million to deal with coal tip safety and “£1.7 billion to help rebuild our public services.”
“Austerity has ended,” she said.
But Ms Jewel retorted that austerity had not ended and pointed out that having a better Budget than the Tories is a low bar.
Ms Morgan said the Budget represents the first steps towards fixing 14 years of austerity and financial mismanagement which have starved our public services of much-needed investment.
