Mark Drakeford: Axing free food in holidays 'a sign of more difficult decisions to come'

  • Mark Drakeford spoke to ITV Cymru Wales' Sharp End programme on Monday

First Minister Mark Drakeford has warned that the decision not to continue funding free food over the school holidays "is a sign of more difficult decisions to come."

It comes after the Welsh Government was criticised for scrapping the scheme that offered eligible families free school meals during the summer and other school holidays.

Mr Drakeford told ITV Cymru Wales' Sharp End programme that the Welsh Government is set to face further challenges when it comes to spending priorities in Wales.

The First Minister said: "The 15 million pounds which we don't have, and could not find for this summer period, is a sign of things to come."

A Welsh Government spokesperson said that offering free school meals during school holidays had been a “time-limited crisis intervention” in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and that there are other support schemes for struggling families.

One critic of the decision, Rocio Cifuentes, the Children's Commissioner for Wales, said that whilst she recognises the "strain on the public purse," "children should not go hungry in Wales."

Is Wales well-funded or underfunded?

Mr Drakeford told ITV Cymru Wales that it wasn't a case of finding the money elsewhere to fund the scheme, but that the reality was "bleaker" than that.

He said: "The Welsh Government's budget is 900 million pounds lower than it was when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now the Prime Minister, set it in October 2021.

Mark Drakeford discussed the Welsh Government's budget challenges with ITV Cymru Wales' Sharp End presenter, Rob Osborne

"The fact that we are not able to afford things that we never planned to do is a sign of the difficulties we will face in spending the money on things we had hoped to do in the rest of this financial year, and even more next year, when the budget falls again."The UK Government says that the Welsh Government has been given the highest settlement since devolution began.

When asked if people would see further spending cuts across Wales, Mr Drakeford said: "I'm saying that we are going to have to realign our budget with the new realities of the UK Government that awards pay increases to public sector workers, pay increases by the way which they richly deserve, and then says there's no new money at all to pay for those pay increases.

"That means we have to find that money from the money we've already got. There's nowhere else to go.

"So inevitably we are going to have to reprioritise our spending, and the very difficult decision we made on free school meals is a sign of more difficult decisions to come."

You can see more of this interview on the latest episode of Sharp End on ITV1 tonight at 8pm. Catch up with the series so far here.