Mark Drakeford defends staff spending thousands at New York restaurants (original) (raw)

Welsh Government ministers have defended the spending of government staff including thousands of pounds at an event in New York City. Earlier this week we published details of the amount spent on Welsh Government procurement cards – including on items including food, travel, and hospitality – almost doubled to £1.49m in recently-released figures covering the period between April 2022 and April 2023.

The most expensive single item claimed for was a food bill for exclusive New York restaurant Zou Zou's which totalled £15,933.45. The restaurant in Manhattan is described as providing foods from "some of the most notable culinary names in the city" and was visited in April 2022. That was an event to promote Wales for St David's Day. The venue has a menu with salads for 29upwards,wholelobsterkebabfor29 upwards, whole lobster kebab for 29upwards,wholelobsterkebabfor51, and French fries for $12. You can read the story in full here.

On Tuesday Trefnydd Jane Hutt defended the spending after a question from Conservative Samuel Kurtz. Mr Kurtz said: "Some of the eye-watering costs in the US include a food bill for Zou Zou's, an exclusive New York restaurant, which totalled nearly £16,000 for a St David's Day event. And what was on the menu? Salads at 29,lobsterkebabat29, lobster kebab at 29,lobsterkebabat51, and French fries for $12 – far from a celebration of Welsh food and culture on St David's Day. Over £2,300 was also spent in a New York Irish bar called Donnelly's when there is quite literally a Welsh bar in New York operated and owned by Welsh people. Could the First Minister outline what checks and balances are there on their spending, what, if any, cost-benefit analysis has been done, and how is this spending helping drive inward investment into Wales or, indeed, strengthening the Welsh diaspora network if key overseas businesses and networks of Welsh descent aren't even involved?"

Mrs Hutt said: "You can't underestimate that across the whole world on St David's Day events take place and I think some of us have been...I went to one in Dublin last year, where businesses come and celebrate St David's Day. Businesses who are doing business in Wales come to these events and they are across the world, these events, and praise the investment that they are making in Wales and they want to celebrate it. "But can I just say that it's important, and I just think you need to, instead of digging around, as you seem to, and your staff team seem to want to do, in collaboration with The Daily Telegraph an awful lot of the time, I think we really do need to recognise it."

Then Monmouthshire MS Peter Fox asked former First Minister Mark Drakeford about the spending. He asked the finance minister to explain the "legitimacy" of the spending saying the restaurant chosen was "expensive, we heard [served] lobsters and various thing –none of which strikes me as particularly Welsh or value for money".

He continued: "On the face of it this seems completely unreasonable – especially considering the financial difficulty that we are all likely to face. I firmly believe we need to be showing off Wales to the world and this could come at a cost, I accept that, but we need to make sure that the money is spent appropriately and delivers benefits to the people of Wales that we can see – tangible benefit. So this isn’t the only major spend that was paid for by Welsh Government procurement cards, there are several purchases that beg questions."

Mr Drakeford responded: "These were expenditures not simply around St David's Day but they were around the game played between Wales and the United States of America during the football World Cup. There was no greater opportunity to showcase Wales to the United States of America than when our two football teams were playing together on that stage. And [Mr Fox] knows he would never have invited a group of investors to Monmouth and said to them: 'Come and see everything Monmouth has to offer and when you arrive I'll offer you a cup of warm water in a plastic beaker' because you know that when you are trying to interest major investors and major companies and to show what Wales has to offer you do have to make sure that you are showing the very best that Wales can have to offer and to use those opportunities.

"That was what was happening when those events were taking place. We have published the direct benefit that has come to Wales as a result of the expenditure we incurred around the World Cup, and I'm very happy that those figures are there in the public domain for anyone to see."

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