Wales’ First Minister will face questions from Senedd members today in the weekly First Minister’s Questions session. Rhun ap Iorwerth will be asked on topics including care-experienced children, public transport in rural areas and high street businesses.
He will also be asked whether health boards should be reformed, and to give an update on a promise to build 20,000 new social homes.
A list of questions from backbench Senedd members are published in advance, but the questions from party leaders are now made public until they are asked.
Later in the plenary session, where all MSs attend, the First Minister will make a 45-minute statement on the Aberfan disaster, ahead of the 60th anniversary on Wednesday.
There will also be a statement by Elin Jones, the finance minister, about council tax. There is speculation she will announce that Plaid will ditch, or at least further delay, plans first announced by Labour.
In 2022, under Mark Drakeford’s tenure, a huge shake up was announced, which said all 1.5m properties in Wales would be revalued, new bands would be created and new tax rates for each band would be set. Wales’ council tax is based on the relative values of properties in 2003 and the idea of revaluing properties was to make it fairer.
At the time, the Welsh Government said the system isn’t fair and the bands used to determine bills are based on information since 2003 so are nearly 20 years out of date and no longer represent current house values or our choices. The amount of council tax charged for band I properties is currently three and a half times as much as band A, yet homes in the top band could be worth at least nine times as much as those in the bottom band.
Their plans for a revaluation in 2024 was postponed with the then-finance minister saying people had told the government they wanted changes to be slower, and less drastic. They instead planned reforms to council tax from 2028. That was one of the reasons cited for Plaid Cymru pulling out of its cooperation deal that year.
In his statement at the time, the First Minister said: “I am also concerned by the emerging approach of the government in relation to some elements of the Co-operation Agreement, including the decision to delay action in supporting the poorest families in our communities, as evidenced most recently by the decision to delay council tax reform”.
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