Wales’s new Plaid Cymru government has been defeated on its first budget, with the Senedd voting down its spending plans by 49 votes to 44 this evening.
Welsh Labour, Reform UK and the Conservatives combined against the supplementary budget — which the government says contained £294m of extra funding to cut NHS waiting times, expand childcare and extend free school meals.
The defeat caps a day of extraordinary pressure on the government, with Welsh Labour demanding the budget be withdrawn and the two school leaders’ unions declaring a formal trade dispute over pay and funding for children with additional learning needs.
At the heart of it is the row over that funding, known as ALN — and a pot of £247m in day-to-day spending that the budget left unallocated.
Labour wanted £100m of that unallocated money spent on ALN between now and next April. On Monday night, First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth wrote to the party with what he described as a final proposal: an extra £40m this year and in each of the next two.
Labour rejected it, and its finance spokesman Huw Thomas told the Senedd the government should have pulled the budget and negotiated with the unions.
In a bad-tempered debate, Thomas warned that any suggestion ALN money would be withheld until a later date was “pernicious,” “vindictive” — and would “lead to widespread industrial action.”
Cabinet Minister for Finance Elin Jones defended the plan, saying it “delivered £294m of extra funding to reduce NHS waiting times, expand childcare, and extend free school meals.”
“It contained no reductions to existing services,” she said. “It was about putting additional funding to work where it could make the greatest difference to the people of Wales.”
But she did not hide her anger at Labour, telling BBC Wales she was “flabbergasted” by the party’s “change of heart” — and accusing it of behaving as a “destructive opposition” with “a lot to learn in making deals.”
Welsh Labour’s interim leader Ken Skates called the result “deeply regrettable” — but insisted the funding offered for additional learning needs “simply wasn’t enough.”
“This isn’t the outcome we wanted,” he said, adding there was “still time to negotiate and bring back new proposals” — and that Labour welcomed much of the budget’s funding, “particularly for reducing NHS waiting lists,” and wanted to see it delivered.
Reform UK voted against throughout, saying none of its demands had been met — including a guaranteed job for newly qualified nurses and paramedics, ALN funding going directly to councils, and an end to overseas spending.
The party’s Senedd leader Dan Thomas said: “Rhun ap Iorwerth’s government has now lost the confidence of this Senedd on his own budget. It’s time he listened to the people of Wales rather than lecturing them.”
Conservative group leader Darren Millar said it was “bonkers” for the government to bring the budget to a vote without a deal in place: “The arithmetic in this Senedd means that Welsh government budgets, and Welsh government legislation, cannot be agreed without cross-party agreement.”
His party’s shadow finance minister, Sam Rowlands, said the budget had “the wrong priorities, offering the same tired approach we saw under Labour despite Plaid’s promises of change.”
Wales’s trade unions urged both sides back to the table. Laura Doel, general secretary of TUC Cymru, said: “The chronic underfunding of additional learning needs provision must be addressed in any future supplementary budget. Wales’ teachers and students deserve nothing less.”
The defeat — in the final week before the Senedd’s summer recess — does not bring the government down, and day-to-day spending continues while a new supplementary budget is drawn up.
Jones signalled the government will try again within months: “We remain committed to delivering these priorities and we will continue to engage constructively with other Senedd parties as we develop our spending plans in the Autumn.”
But for a minority administration less than 100 days old — elected in May after ending 27 years of Labour dominance — losing the vote on its own budget is by far its biggest setback yet, and the dispute with the teaching unions, now heading for the conciliation service ACAS, rolls on regardless.
