WELSH First Minister Mark Drakeford said today that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Budget had prioritised petrol and potholes over people and pay.

He was speaking about the Budget’s impact on the Welsh economy during First Minister’s Questions in the Senedd.

Welsh Conservatives head Andrew Davies wanted to know whether the Welsh government would implement the childcare arrangements that Mr Hunt announced for England.

Mr Drakeford told the opposition leader that the Budget was an attempt in England to catch up with services that are already available in Wales.

“We are already promising to do three times as much as the Chancellor is promising to do in England on a proportional basis,” he said.

Welsh Labour’s Huw Irranca-Davies wanted to know what assessment the First Minister had made of the implications for Wales of the UK government’s Budget.

Mr Drakeford replied: “The Budget provided no extra funding for health, social services or public-sector pay and offered bare-minimum additional support for people and businesses.

“It prioritised petrol and potholes over people and pay.”

He said he had never seen a worse deal for Wales and found it “unfathomable” that there was no extra funding for the NHS.

“There is nothing at all to help either the fabric of the health service, the services that are provided or the pay of those people on whom we rely,” the First Minister said.

Noting that the chancellor had said that he was setting out a Budget for growth, Mr Drakeford said it had provided a mere £1 million “to modernise our school system, to invest in equipment in the health service and to provide for the digital services on which the future economy of Wales relies.”