THE impeding Brexit means “times will be tough” for public funding in years to come, Wales’ finance secretary has said.

Mark Drakeford is due to unveil his draft budget for the 2017-2018 financial year this afternoon.

And, speaking yesterday, Monday, the Labour minister said the impact of austerity on the budget in coming years would be “unremitting”.

“There is nothing in the end I can do as the finance minister for Wales to melt away those problems and make them disappear,” he said.

He added he had developed the draft budget along the principles of stability and ambition.

“We are going to lay a budget that provides the best platform we can secure for all our public services against the fact that there are even tougher times ahead and even harder choices which will have to be faced later during this assembly term if the deeply misguided policies of austerity continue, while wanting to provide as stable a platform as we can for local government, for health and for everything local government does in education, social services, transport and so on,” he said.

With the timetable for the UK’s exit from the European Union still unclear, Mr Drakeford said the imposing Brexit had been a central consideration in putting together the draft budget.

“The impact of uncertainty is already being felt in decisions which are being made by important investors in companies in the future so that’s in background here,” he said.

“It’s another reason a budget for stability, as well as ambition, has been part of our thinking.”

He added: “The bigger impact is the vast majority of serious economic commentators conclude the long-term impact on the British economy is that it will grow more slowly than it otherwise would have done.

“That will lead to lower tax receipts and that will mean lower sums of money available for public services.”

He added: “I am serious in saying those times will be tougher still, particularly because of the Brexit.”

Mr Drakeford also said Plaid Cymru had agreed to support the draft budget in exchange for some financial commitments towards some of their key policy areas as part of the agreement between the two parties following May’s Assembly election.

He said he had been faced with a challenging balancing act of making savings while also delivering manifesto commitments.

“There’s an awful lot of uncertainty in the air and my aim in this budget is not to add to that but to try and induce some stability while being clear we will make a start on all the major commitments that we promised we will deliver over this assembly term,” he said.

Today’s draft budget will not include details of how much funding will be dealt out to each of Wales’ 22 local authorities, which will be revealed tomorrow, Wednesday.

Mr Drakeford will release his draft budget at 2.30pm. For full details visit southwalesargus.co.uk