Finance Interministerial Standing Committee: 22 June 2023

Items and actions

Rebecca Evans MS, Minister for Finance and Local Government (Welsh Government) chaired a meeting of the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee (F:ISC) on 22 June 2023 in Cardiff. The meeting was attended by The Rt Hon John Glen MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury (UK Government), and Shona Robison MSP, Deputy First Minister of Scotland and Cabinet Secretary for Finance (Scottish Government). Officials from the Northern Ireland Executive attended virtually in a listening capacity.
 
All Ministers welcomed the opportunity to meet in-person to discuss the current economic context and sought to build positive and constructive relationships across the governments. 
 
Ministers discussed public spending pressures and the economic outlook with a focus on the on-going budget challenges, inflation, funding for capital investment and the importance of working collaboratively in relation to the cost of living crisis.

The second substantive agenda item was a discussion on energy security and net zero, looking at this issue through an economic and fiscal lens. Each government provided an update on areas of focus and discussed opportunities around job creation and research, development and innovation.

Finally, Ministers engaged on an update on EU replacement funding, reporting on the action from the previous meeting.

As the F:ISC has been operational for over a year, agreement was given to officials working over the summer to review the Terms of Reference and Operating Procedures.

Ministers noted that the next meeting of the F:ISC would take place in September but welcomed continual inter-ministerial engagement between the governments.