DRAKEFORD: NO TIME TO LEARN ON THE JOB

future funding prospects would get worse, not better.

“If we get Brexit wrong, and the UK Government shows every sign of doing that, then the impact on tax receipts and therefore funding for Welsh public services will be really affected as well. The next First Minister will face having to lay a Final Budget within days of taking office, and they will become First Minister just when all these Brexit debates finally come to the boil. There will be no time for anybody to learn to be First Minister on the job – and one of the things I think I genuinely do offer is the fact that I deal with these things every single day, and I’m as well-prepared as anybody can be to do the job that Wales will need to be done from the very first moment of being elected.”

Mr Drakeford said that if elected he would keep Liberal Democrat AM Kirsty Williams as Education Secretary and Independent AM Dafydd Elis-Thomas as Culture Minister. At the last National Assembly election in 2016, Labour won 29 of the 60 seats.

He said: “I think it would be very important to sustain the Government as we have it. We need a working majority to do the very important things we need to do. I think Kirsty has been a very successful member of this Government so far, and it would certainly be my intention if I were First Minister to offer her the chance to go on doing that important work if she would wish to do so.”

On Lord Elis-Thomas, he said: “He has thrown himself into the job that he has in culture and sport and so on. He’s a fantastically energetic person to have around, enjoying his portfolio hugely, which I think is important, and showing every sign of wanting to go on making that contribution. If he was keen to do it, then I’d be keen to have him.”

Asked whether he welcomed the prospect of a reinvigorated Plaid Cymru under its new leader Adam Price, Mr Drakeford said: “I certainly welcome having a Plaid Cymru that is vigorous and has ideas and so on. Adam has a long history in Wales of being someone that is interested in ideas. I’ve had lots of interesting discussions with him both on the Assembly floor and behind the scenes about ideas we could use here in Wales, and he will undoubtedly bring that to the debate – and that enriches the debate and I am very keen to engage with him on that.

“He has made a very particular point during the Plaid Cymru leadership election campaign of saying he thinks independence should be front and centre of the offer that Plaid Cymru makes here in Wales and on that point I do undoubtedly differ from him. I have always been very committed to devolution, and I think allowing Welsh people to have the maximum say over decisions that matter only in Wales is absolutely the right thing – and that journey is not over. But I also believe that Wales’ future is best secured through a very successful United Kingdom.”

Asked about the prospects for Wales in a possible future scenario where the UK broke up after a bad Brexit, with Scotland becoming independent and Ireland being reunited, Mr Drakeford said: “In those circumstances, Plaid Cymru’s political mission is to make that happen as fast as they can.

“They are in favour of the break-up of the UK. They’re not responding to a set of circumstances that might happen – it is their explicit policy and if they were to be elected as a government, they would be adding to the pressure to break up the UK, whereas even in that long set of what-ifs that you outlined, what a Labour Party in Wales would be doing would be trying to make a success of the UK – to make sure that those things didn’t happen rather than trying to accelerate the path to them.