I move that the Bill now be read a second time.

PART I — I RISE FOR THE LAST TIME

1.           Madam Speaker, as I move the Appropriation Bill today I do so, before this House and before the people of Gibraltar, for the last time as their Chief Minister.

2.           This year, in late April Draft Estimates Book No1 was delivered to me for the last time.

3.          I hadn’t quite appreciated the importance of the number on the top right hand corner of the book Sixteen Budgets ago, when I stood not where I stand now, but on the other side of this House.

4.          I was the Leader of the Opposition then.

5.          I told this Parliament that Gibraltar could be more than it was being allowed to be.

6.           I said we could grow our economy faster than anyone in the GSD believed possible

7.           I said it knowing I had the best economist in Gibraltar by my side to deliver it.

8.           Sir Joe Bossano.

9.           I said we could pay our lowest-paid workers a more decent wage and raise it year upon year – not just when it suited the GSD.

10.       I said it knowing I had the man who introduced the minimum wage in Gibraltar by my side to deliver it.

11.       Sir Joe Bossano.

12.       I said we could build the homes, the schools and the hospital wards that a modern nation requires, and do it without mortgaging our children's future.

13.       I said it knowing I had the man who had invented affordable home ownership on the 50/50 basis by my side to deliver it.

14.       Sir Joe Bossano.

15.       I said we could owe less, in proportion to what we earn, than the Government of the day by spending no more than we earnt – the Gold Rule that runs through GSLP politics!

16.       Needless to say, I said that because it had been done before.

17.       By Sir Joe Bossano.

18.       And I said that a small people on a small Rock could stand among the richest and the freest on the face of the earth.

19.       Because in every appropriation debate since he joined this House in the year I was born, and in particular since he became Chief Minister in 1988, Sir Joe has made the same point.

20.       Our greatest assets are our scarce land and our talented people.

21.       We were accused, Madam Speaker, of an optimism bordering on the reckless.

22.       I was told it could not be done.

23.       The position of the GSD was literally that our proposed GDP increases were impossible.

24.       That our economic plans would not work.

25.       Today I lay the annual accounts before this House for one last time.

26.       Today, I let the figures answer the charge.

27.       Today, it is clear, once again, that we were right and they were wrong.

28.       Because, Madam Speaker, this is, once again, a Budget that demonstrates that Gibraltar is more than the sum of its parts.

29.       That we as a people can do more than member’s opposite are capable of imagining.

30.       And that with the right leadership, this nation of ours can continue to prosper as it has to date.

31.      That is why, Madam Speaker, for more than a decade, I have had the honour of presenting Budgets that sought not only to balance accounts.

32.      But to balance ambition with responsibility.

33.      Fairness with discipline.

34.      And hope with realism.

35.      This community has entrusted me with its confidence, its concerns, and its aspirations.

36.      I have never taken that trust for granted.

37.      And I have never let our people down.

38.      For 15 years I have made the choices that got us to where we are today.

39.      And where we are today is not a bad place to be Madam Speaker.

40.      So, as we embark on this, my last State of the Nation debate as our nation’s leader, I want to set out matters that need to be set out in marking the moment when I start to let go of the reins of office.

41.      As I prepare to cede the teller, I reflect on where we were when I reached the Bridge of HMS Gibraltar, where we are now and how we got here.

42.      Because this is much more than just a Budget, Madam Speaker.

43.      It is a State of the Nation Debate just as our nation comes to its most propitious moment.

44.      But our UK / EU Treaty is not the only thing happening in the world.

45.      And it is not the only thing that will affect our economic performance.

46.      What will be constant, however, is our cast iron commitment to the observance of the GOLDEN RULE.

47.      That is non-negotiable, even in a pandemic when we were specific in seeking only a limited exemption from its necessary strictures.

Part II — The World As We Found It This Year

48.       Because, Madam Speaker, no Budget is delivered in a vacuum, and this one least of all.

49.       So let me set the figures I am about to present against the world in which they were earned.

50.       It has not been a gentle year for the global economy.

51.       The war in Ukraine has ground on, keeping its hand on the throat of European energy prices.

52.       When that seemed hard enough, the unthinkable happened and war broke out between the USA and Iran with the Straits of Hormuz representing a further choking of global energy supplies.

53.       The conflict in the Middle East has continued to disturb the flow of oil, the cost of a barrel, and the long supply chains on which a small, open, importing economy such as ours depends for almost everything on its shelves.

54.       Across the world, the politics of tariffs and trade barriers have returned, and with them an uncertainty that every finance minister on earth has had to plan around.

55.       And yet, hold those head-winds in your mind, and look at what this economy did in their teeth.

56.       Inflation, which tore through the world at 7.9 per cent in January of 2023, was held in Gibraltar to an average of 3.0 per cent in 2024, 2.8 per cent in 2025, and is forecast at just 2.4 per cent for 2026 — beneath the United Kingdom's own rate.

57.       Interest rates, having peaked, eased over the year from 4.5 to 3.75 per cent — and yet, in preparing these Estimates, we have prudently assumed no relief from our borrowing costs, because this Government plans for the storm and is grateful for the calm.

58.       We did not import the world's inflation when we could shield our people from it.

59.       We held the duty on fuel down to fourteen pence a litre rather than let the turbulence of distant wars pass straight through to the Gibraltarian household.

60.       We held off that burden from our people.

61.       We chose to deplete our coffers to ensure our people did not suffer even greater cost of living problems at the pump.

62.       Not every government, even socialist ones, were as quick to act.

63.       But in my mind – in our minds, on this side of the House - that is what government is for.

64.      To stand between the nation’s families and the storm.

65.      To stand between the Gibraltarians and the worst of the world’s events.

66.      Not to fill the Treasury coffers more to come here and say we have more in the kitty or the surplus.

67.      That is not our style or approach.

68.      But to know when to ensure that the kitty and the surplus are at the disposal of our people.

69.       And this Government has stood there, in the storm, without flinching, all year long.

70.       Facing down international events and helping our people through them.

71.      Facing down also national events when unreasonable claims have been made that members opposite have appeared to back without regard to cost, consequence of fairness.

72.      Facing down …three pandemics.

73.      A health pandemic, which was COVID.

74.      The consequences of that require no elaboration.

75.      Suffice to say, Madam Speaker, that I continue to feel deeply the loss of every life we suffered.

76.      And that I continue to feel deeply the effects of all our decisions at that time – not least the financial ones – but especially those that deprived the public of their freedom of movement about our territory.

77.      None of those decisions was made lightly.

78.      But all were made in the best interests of all of our people, our elderly in particular.

79.      A political pandemic, which was BREXIT.

80.      We have now turned the corner of the decade since that ill-fated referendum.

81.      And despite it all, there are positives in all of the aftershocks of this dreadful, misguided decision.

82.      Not least, Madam Speaker, the fact that we voted with the rest of the United Kingdom in the referendum.

83.      We were part of the franchise.

84.      Despite the result, that matters.

85.      Massively.

86.      And the pestilence of Snr Margallo’s period in the Spanish government.

87.      A pestilence that affected the health of all the families in the region.

88.      That affected the daily life of workers and their families.

89.      That divided families.

90.      A period just shy of the troubles caused by the despicable dictator Franco’s assault on our people.

91.      And both with one fundamental aspect in common.

92.      An inability to accept the will of the Gibraltarians is to remain British.

93.      And that whatever coercion may be brough to bear upon us, our FREE WILL shall prevail.

94.      But, any way, all that we have dealt with, and more, of course in the past 15 years.

95.      In addition, we had to deal with the issue of the OS35, which occupied us in the long, hot summer and which was a dress rehearsal for our beloved Royal Marines for the brilliant work they are undertaking now in intercepting the Russian Shadow fleet.

96.      After the OS35, Assad was not long for his autocratic throne.

97.      Perhaps the omens may repeat themselves.

98.      And the defining issue of this decade has, of course, been Brexit.

99.      And our success on Brexit is, in its way, also our cross to bear on this side of the House.

100.   Because by working with our colleagues in the Foreign Office and across Whitehall to keep the worst effects of Brexit away from our shores, we ensured that the people of Gibraltar never felt the demons that so many had feared.

101.   The United Kingdom left the European Union on the 31st of January 2020; the transition period ended on the 31st of December 2020; and from the first day of 2021 the full reality of Brexit took hold.

102.   Yet here we are, more than five years on, and our people have lived those years largely unburdened by the consequences that haunted the rest of the continent.

103.   That is a profound achievement, Madam Speaker.

104.   But it carries a paradox within it.

105.   For when you spare people the pain, you sometimes also spare them the understanding of just how close that pain came — and of the sheer magnitude of the negotiation that has occupied this Government for the better part of ten years.

106.   First with the United Kingdom, in the context of the notification under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, given by Mrs May as Prime Minister on the 29th of March 2017.

107.   Then in the negotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement that began immediately thereafter.

108.   It was our inclusion in that Agreement — fought for, not gifted — that kept the worst of Brexit at bay.

109.   It was that inclusion which preserved our people's largely unimpeded access across the frontier, difficult though those times were for our Civilian Registration Card holders.

110.   It was that inclusion which allowed our businesses to keep trading — with some change, yes, but effectively, and without collapse.

111.   Last year I addressed the House 18 days after we reached final agreement in Brussels on the Treaty between the UK and the EU…

112.   Now, this year, I address the House 7 days before I head to Brussels with the Deputy Chief Minister to attend to the signature of that same treaty.

113.   Madam Speaker, this year we are living a moment unlike any other in the modern history of this House.

114.   Even as I speak, the ink is being prepared for a signature that generations of Gibraltarians longed for and never lived to see.

115.   This very week, the European Union took the final formal step to adopt the Treaty between the United Kingdom and the European Union in respect of Gibraltar that will remove the final vestige of the various sieges of our people.

116.   The lawyer-linguists have completed their work across all twenty-four languages of the Union.

117.   The Council has spoken.

118.   The European way is now clear for that Treaty to be signed within days, and to be provisionally applied from the fifteenth of July.

119.   The European side have crossed their Rubicon.

120.   They are ready to sign.

121.   And so, Madam Speaker, will we be.

122.   In coming days I will lay in this House the Concordat between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar that I have consulted the Leader of the Opposition on.

123.   I can confirm to this House that, when I lay it, I will be satisfied that the said Concordat ensures that, in keeping with the provisions of the Gibraltar Constitution and the principle of consent in the double lock, the relevant UK powers in the agreement can only be exercised in accordance with the wishes and consent of the Government of Gibraltar; and that the people of Gibraltar have the right to determine in referendum whether the agreement should be terminated in future.

124.   Those are the terms of the Motion that the House unanimously agreed earlier this year.

125.   Incredible, really.

126.   For more than three hundred years — since the Treaty of Utrecht made this Rock legally British in 1713 — the frontier with Spain has been the defining fault line of Gibraltarian life.

127.   Even then, 313 years ago, the cession was 'without any open communication by land with the country round about.'

128.   It became the flash point at times of sieges.

129.   A line fixed by the reach of canon balls.

130.   It was the line down which a dictator slammed the gates in 1969 - dividing families, stranding a generation, and condemning our people the sixteen long years of the final siege of Gibraltar by iron gate and locked padlock.

131.   It is also the fence that made us believe it kept us safe just because it kept us captive for that generation defining era.

132.   And it is that fence, Madam Speaker — that scar across our story as a people — which this Treaty now begins to dissolve.

133.   Unlocking, at last, the movement, the fluidity and the prosperity that our geography always offered and that history for so long denied us.

134.   But, what's past, as the poet said, is prologue.

135.   Three centuries of that frontier are the prologue.

136.   And the chapter that opens now — of an open frontier, a flourishing economy, and a Gibraltar that remains wholly, unmistakably and forever British — is the one it falls to this House, and to this Budget, to begin to write in human poetry.

137.   What is going to make us safer is the live facial recognition technology.

138.   The CCTV coverage.

139.   The investment in more police officers.

140.   The professionalism of our law enforcement agencies and our Borders & Coastguard officers.

141.   And the provision of a Joint Tri-Service Headquarters at the Airport facing the frontier.

142.   But our Treaty is not all that is happening around us.

143.   Even as we prepare to enter into the Treaty, the tectonic plates of politics are moving around us, in particular in Spain.

144.   “The dice are rolling.

145.   The knives are out.

146.   I see every bad sign in the book.”

147.   In relation to the United Kingdom, last year I referred to the fact that the many head winds we had faced included changing Prime Ministers faster than the seasons.

148.   I had thought, perhaps foolishly, then that Sir Kier would be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom I would see in No10 in my time in office at No6…

149.   Now, in fact, we know that there is to be a new incumbent of No 10 by the 20th July.

150.   It is now increasingly likely it will be the Rt Hon Mr Burnham who will be our new Prime Minister.

151.   And it is also likely that No10 Downing Street will no longer be the only seat of power in the United Kingdom, with a No10 in the North being established.

152.   How things have changed in the past decade and a half Madam Speaker.

153.   And all that we have navigated with calm.

154.   With careful logic and political agility that comes from the Deputy Chief Minister and I having been a partnership of almost 35 years.

155.   That’s longer than all my marriages put together, Madam Speaker!

156.   And, indeed, Madam Speaker, I do not think there has been a more successful political tandem than ours!

157.   And with the clear purpose of always making the best of a very mixed bag for the People of Gibraltar and the Rock that is our Home.

158.   Because if I have learnt one thing about Gibraltar, its trajectory and our struggle in 15 years it is best encapsulated by a phrase from Aristotle Onasis, not a person frequently quoted by socialists in Budget speeches, I admit:

159.    He said this about how to succeed in the struggle of life:

“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”

160.   And that is what we have done.

161.   Learnt to sail in high winds.

162.   And we have done it well enough, Madam Speaker, that our biggest detractors – and our biggest battles – have been here.

163.   In this room.

164.   In this chamber that we turned from the dark panelled hall that pushed out the prying eyes of cameras.

165.   In this place which we open up to live video transmission against the wishes of the former leadership of the GSD.

166.   That our battles have been here is no bad thing.

167.   Because, elsewhere, in the real world, we have achieved much for our people.

168.   And that is what has enabled us to deliver.

169.   That the reality has been far different from the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ style rabbit hole that the Opposition try to lure us to in this place where everything in Gibraltar is wrong.

170.   Where everything would have been done better if it had been done by them.

171.   But where the reality is that everyone in this House knows, Madam Speaker, even Members Opposite, at least, if they are being honest with themselves, that they are not up to the task.

Part III — I Know What I Am About To Hear

172.    So, Madam Speaker, before I come to the figures, let me save the Opposition a little of their breath — for I have heard their speech every year for fifteen years, and I could, if the House would permit me, deliver it for them.

173.    I know what I am about to hear.

174.    I am about to hear that the figures in this Budget are a mirage.

175.    That they are an oasis that vanishes as you approach it.

176.    That there are two sets of books.

177.    That there is a parallel Treasury, a parallel Government, a parallel Chief Minister.

178.    I am about to hear that Gibraltar is buried under a mountain of debt; that we are in the financial intensive care unit; that there is a jungle of opaque companies in which the truth is hidden from the people.

179.    I have heard it all before.

180.    I heard it from the other Mr Feetham.

181.    I heard it from Mr Phillips.

182.    I hear it still from Mr Azopardi.

183.    And above all, year upon year, I hear it from the Honourable Member whose estimate of our so-called "true debt" has climbed so repeatedly that one could set a clock by it — Mr Clinton.

184.    So let me deal with it now, at the outset, in the daylight — and not leave it only to my reply.

185.    Because my Government is confident of its record and we have no issue with Opposition attacks, Madam Speaker.

186.   We set out the truth, and lets see how on earth the Opposition to dispute it now with 15 years of real performance behind us.

Part IV — Gibraltar I Inherited v The Gibraltar I Hand Over

187.    So let me now, Madam Speaker, start the economic analysis.

188.   Madam Speaker, I remember a Gibraltar whose entire economy was worth just £1 Billion pounds.

189.    In 2010/11, the year before this Government took office, our Gross Domestic Product stood at £1,082 Billion.

190.    This year, our GDP is forecast at £3,252 BILLION.

191.   That is THREE & A QUARTER BILLION POUNDS.

192.    We have very nearly trebled the size of the Gibraltar economy in a decade and a half.

193.    An increase of more than two thousand million pounds – TWO BILLION POUNDS.

194.    An increase of over two hundred per cent.

195.    And we have done it through the storm of the century:

196.   Through a pandemic that closed the world and cost this economy £425 million – nearly HALF A BILLION POUNDS;

197.   Through the wars I have described;

198.   AND through a frontier that, for too much of our history, was used as a weapon against us.

199.    Let me give the House the figures year upon year, for they tell their own story:

200.    In 2010/11, £1,082 BN.

201.    In 2011/12, £1,201 BN

202.    In 2012/13, £1,317 BN.

203.    In 2013/14, £1,479 BN.

204.    In 2014/15, £1,613 BN.

205.    In 2015/16, £1,794 BN.

206.    They had said it was impossible when we predicted this figure in 2011.

207.    But we did it.

208.    In 2016/17, £2,020 BN — the year we passed two billion.

209.    In 2017/18, £2,268 BN.

210.    In 2018/19, £2,456 BN.

211.    In 2019/20, £2,568 BN.

212.    They had also said it was over-ambitious and unachievable.

213.    But we did it.

214.    Then, Madam Speaker, the pandemic — and even in the teeth of it, we fell only to £2,417 BN in 2020/21, and we climbed straight back: £2,539 BN in 2021/22; £2,749 BN in 2022/23; £2,898 BN in 2023/24; £3,090 BN in 2024/25; and this year, a forecast £3,253 BN.

215.    The only difference is in the narrative.

216.   Not in the economic growth.

217.   The difference is that they have stopped saying that our predictions are not going to materialise.

218.    And those figures are not just a line on a graph.

219.    They are fifteen years of hard work.

220.    And not just by me.

221.    By every member of my Cabinets in that period.

222.    By every active worker in our economy.

223.    By every Gibraltarian and cross frontier worker.

224.    An economic success built by the people who make up the economically active workforce of Team Gibraltar.

225.    A success guided by our economic policies.

226.    Sure.

227.    But delivered by the hard work of all of us together.

228.    That is the growth between the Gibraltar I inherited and the Gibraltar I hand on.

229.    And I want to make one thing clear, Madam Speaker.

230.    That has been the case as every Chief Minister has handed over to another.

231.    The growth may have been bigger or less big.

232.    We may have had differences about how to do things.

233.    But each of us has handed over an economy bigger than we inherited.

234.    And long may that be the case.

235.    Indeed, forever may that be the case, whatever the party that may alternate in power.

236.    Because none of us is entrusted with the office of Chief Minister for any purpose other than to grow our nation as our respective generation can.

237.    And as I deliver this Budget Address for the last time as Leader of the House, I could not be prouder to have delivered this growth.

238.    For my generation, I genuinely believe it is growth to be proud of.

239.    Growth delivered for the purpose of our national development as a people.

240.    Growth aimed first and foremost at making the lives of our people even better than when I took office that bright autumn morning of the 9th of December 2011.

241.    Even though, then, and in 2011, the GSD said it could not be done.

Part V — Where We Stand In The World

242.    But, Madam Speaker, the size of an economy is one thing.

243.    The wealth it represents for each person within it is another — and here the achievement is greater still.

244.    Average Earnings in Gibraltar have gone from £25,831 in 2011 to just shy of £40,000 now.

245.    £39,511 to be exact.

246.    That is an increase of just under 53% in average earnings.

247.    I remember a Gibraltar where our GDP per head stood at around thirty-four thousand pounds — £34,247 in 2010/11 when the population was only 32,000.

248.    This year, dividing our forecast Gross Domestic Product across a resident population of 38,200, it stands at £85,145 per head.

249.    We have more than doubled the wealth this economy generates for every man, woman and child on the Rock.

250.    The growth in GDP per capita has been of just shy of 150%[1].

251.    But let me put that figure where it belongs — on the league table of the nations and always with the caveat I make every year that the figure is not one that puts food on anyone’s table.

The Caveat

252.   In 2003 Sir Peter gave Gibraltar's GDP per capita as £15,120 against £14,962 for the United Kingdom, concluding Gibraltar's was slightly higher.

253.   Our GDP was then just £158 higher than the UK’s.

254.   Today, our GDP is £27,537 above the UK’s GDP per capita.

255.   In 2005 (Hansard 28 April 2005, p.42) Sir Peter declared our GDP per capita at $32,393 (2004 rates) saying we stood "eleventh out of all the countries in the world."

256.   Tellingly, the Father of the House objected on the spot (p.49) that "comparisons with the rest of the world were not permissible before 1996" — confirming, from the opposition benches, that such comparisons are only allows in GSD world when the work for GSD world...

257.   In 2006 (Hansard 12 June 2006, p.13) Sir Peter went further boasting in terms of personal affluence, that "our GDP per capita is tenth in the world."

258.   In 2008 (Hansard 3 April 2008, p.39) my predecessor – the then leader of the same GSD that now calls this calculation irrelevant - called GDP per capita "the usual measure of a country's prosperity," and ranked Gibraltar ninth in the IMF world rankings and tenth on the World Bank's list, alongside a survey placing Gibraltar fourth in the world for combined political stability and economic prosperity.

259.   The fact is that International Monetary Fund ranks every economy in the world by GDP per capita in United States dollars, and I invite the House to look very carefully at where Gibraltar now sits.

260.    Converted into United States dollars, Gibraltar's GDP per head this year amounts to one hundred and twenty-six thousand and fifteen United States dollars[2].

261.    And on that measure, Madam Speaker, Gibraltar stands THIRD  after Luxembourg and Lichtenstein among the sovereign nations of the world.

262.    Third in the whole world, Madam Speaker.

263.   Gibraltar remains comfortably within the top 5 wealthiest places on the planet.

264.    We stand above Ireland.

265.    We stand above Switzerland.

266.    We stand above Singapore, that byword for prosperity.

267.    We stand above Norway.

268.    We stand above the United States of America, the largest economy on earth.

269.    We stand above the United Kingdom.

270.    And we stand far above the Kingdom of Spain, whose governments have, for three hundred years, told the world that we cannot survive without them.

271.   Gibraltar's GDP per head is almost three times that of Spain.

272.    As I have always cautioned this House, these international comparisons are not an exact science — they turn on differing national methodologies and on fluctuating exchange rates — but on any honest measure, Gibraltar now stands among the very wealthiest places on the face of the earth.

273.   And I know all Honourable Members opposite will be saying this measure does not matter.

274.   But it was the measure with which they would try to win elections.

275.   In 2003, when Sir Peter first used the measure of GDP per capita, the Hon the Leader of the Opposition was Deputy Chief Minister and he was nodding along in agreement.

276.   Collective responsibility and all that, eh?

277.   But now he comes here to say that the measure he valued so much then means nothing now.

278.   Well, shows you how reliable and consistent their views are.

279.   So giddy and unfirm.

280.   So much sooner lost and won than ours are…

281.   But certainly and indication of just how thriving a democracy we are, Madam Speaker.

282.   Not only are we a place of a plethora of opinions.

283.   Just in the opposition alone there are people who hold contradicting positions on the same subject!

284.    Some dictatorship, Madam Speaker.

285.    Some barren Rock this on which prosperity is rampant.

286.   And that is no mirage, Ma’am.

Part VI — Jobs And Wages

287.    Madam Speaker, our economy, the GDP, the figures in this House – none of it is an abstraction.

288.    It is people in work, earning a living, raising their families.

289.    And here, too, the record is one of transformation.

290.    I remember a Gibraltar with 22,247 jobs.

291.    That is the Gibraltar I was elected to lead in 2011.

292.    This October, the Employment Survey recorded a new all-time high of 32,206 employee jobs on this Rock.

293.   That is almost ten thousand more than when I took office.

294.   An increase of 44.8%, driven overwhelmingly by the private sector this Government set out to set free.

295.    And I remember a Gibraltar where the average worker took home under twenty-six thousand pounds a year — £25,831 in 2011.

296.    Those were the average earnings then.

297.    Today, average annual earnings stand at £39,511 — an increase of more than half.

298.    And, crucially, earnings rose this year by 5.8 per cent in cash terms and by 2.8 per cent in real terms, after inflation.

299.    Wages on this Rock are not merely higher in the statistics pages and in the arguments I put here.

300.    They are higher in the pocket of each worker.

301.   Including in the entry grades into the public service:

302.   Those have gone from an entry level salary of £15,168 to £24,413.

303.   That is an inflation busting 60% increase, Madam Speaker[3].

Part VII — Protecting The Working People Of Gibraltar: The Minimum Wage

304.    And the same is true of the lowest paid in our economy.

305.   Because, Madam Speaker, I come now to the measure of which I am most proud in fifteen years of government.

306.    Not the trebling of GDP.

307.    Not Second place in the world.

308.    This.

309.    When this Government came to office, the minimum wage in Gibraltar — the legal floor beneath the lowest-paid worker on the Rock — stood at five pounds and forty pence an hour.

310.    £5.40.

311.    Now it is £9.50.

312.    That represents an increase of 75%.

313.    Today, Madam Speaker, I announce to this House that the minimum wage will rise again.

314.   In the first measure I will announce to assist working people, I am proud to announce that the Minimum Wage will today go up by a further fifty pence — to ten pounds an hour.

315.    £10.00 per hour.

316.    Let the House do the arithmetic, because it is worth doing slowly.

317.    This year's increase, from £9.50 to £10.00, is a rise of 5.26 per cent — comfortably ahead of inflation, which means the very lowest-paid worker in Gibraltar will be better off in real terms this year, as in almost every year of this Government.

318.    And from the £5.40 we inherited to the £10.00 I announce today, the minimum wage in Gibraltar has risen by four pounds and sixty pence.

319.    That is an increase of 85.2%

320.    We have very nearly doubled the minimum wage of this country.

321.    And with inflation in that period at around 46%, the minimum wage has increased by almost double inflation.

322.    And despite all the complaints we might hear, no business in Gibraltar has gone out of business because of the increases in the minimum wage.

323.    But working people are substantially better off.

324.    Because these increases matter.

325.    That is why we did not increase the minimum wage in the year before an election and then take rest for 3 years or so like the GSD used to do.

326.    We did it again, and again, and again.

327.   Every single year.

328.   At every single Budget this Government has delivered.

329.    Fifteen Budgets bar COVID.

330.    Fifteen times we have stood by the lowest-paid.

331.    Not one Budget has passed in which this Government failed to lift the floor beneath the worker who has the least.

332.    Because here is what I believe, and what this Government has always believed.

333.    We did not grow this economy for the few at the very top.

334.    We did not labour for fifteen years so that the league tables of the International Monetary Fund could flatter the wealthy.

335.    We grew this economy so that the cleaner, the carer, the kitchen porter, the shop assistant, the security guard would take home more this year than last, and more next year than this.

336.    The men and women who rise before dawn and keep this Rock running deserve no less.

337.    Alarm clock Gibraltar deserves no less.

338.    Because a rising economy that does not reach the lowest-paid is no achievement at all.

339.    And our economic success has reached the lowest paid EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

340.    Eighty-five per cent higher than the wage we found.

341.    That is what protecting working people looks like — not in a slogan, but in the wage packet, every single year.

342.    And let me say this plainly to those who will sneer that this is typical socialism.

343.    It is the proudest socialism I know.

344.    The proud tradition established by the GSLP in 1989.

345.    Maintained by the GSLP Liberals since 2011.

346.    A key plank of every one of our Budgets.

347.    Delivering Social Justice to the lowest paid.

348.   And it has been delivered alongside the fastest economic growth in our history and the fifth-highest GDP per head on earth.

349.    We have proved, on this Rock, that you can have both.

350.    That a Government can BOTH grow the cake AND share it more fairly at one and the same time.

351.    That is the GSLP-Liberal achievement.

352.   And no one, Madam Speaker, can take it from us.

353.   Because, in the end, whatever is said in this place – the figures speak for themselves.

354.   The pay packets speak for themselves.

355.   And there is no more real politics than what people are feeling in their pockets at the end of each month!

356.   That is real politics.

357.   Because THAT is real life!

Part VIII — Off the Spanish Blacklist, at Last

358.    And real life effects on the lives of thousands of people are the consequences of what we do here.

359.   So, Madam Speaker, I turn now to a victory thirty-five years in the making that has had massive effect on the lives of tens of thousands of people, in particular the lowest paid.

360.    Since 1991 — since before some Members of this House were born — Gibraltar has sat on Spain's list of so-called non-cooperative jurisdictions.

361.    Its tax-haven blacklist.

362.    We sat there through every reform, for thirty-five years.

363.   We sat there even though Gibraltar has been on the OECD's white list for tax transparency since 2009, and even though Gibraltar has never once appeared on the European Union's own list of non-cooperative jurisdictions.

364.    We were transparent.

365.    We were cooperative.

366.    We were compliant.

367.    And still that designation hung around our necks like a slander that would not be retracted — costing our businesses, complicating the lives of our cross-frontier workers, staining a reputation we had done nothing to deserve.

368.    It was the Tax Treaty between the United Kingdom and Spain in respect of Gibraltar.

369.   The Treaty that this Government negotiated, and that entered into force in March 2021 — which finally stripped Spain of every excuse.

370.   And we did that in the face of scathing criticism from members opposite, the Leader of the Opposition in particular.

371.    Under that Treaty, Spain committed to remove Gibraltar from its blacklist within two years.

372.    That commitment was not honoured on time, and I made it publicly clear that Gibraltar would consider withdrawing from the Treaty altogether if Spain did not keep its word.

373.    And now, Madam Speaker, Spain has kept it.

374.    After thirty-five years, Gibraltar has been removed from the Spanish blacklist.

375.    This is a magnificent result, and all of Gibraltar should celebrate it.

376.    It is the formal recognition, at long last, of what we have always been: a serious, transparent, well-regulated jurisdiction of the first rank.

377.    And it carries a real and human dividend.

378.   For local families who have personal business to transact in Spain.

379.   For local businesses who transact business in Spain.

380.   For the cross-frontier workers resident in Spain, who may now at last access exemptions on employment income that the blacklist had denied them.

381.    More money in the pockets of the very workers who cross to build our economy every day.

382.    And money that is put there by the Spanish state no longer picking their pockets for double taxation.

383.    I record the gratitude of this House to the negotiating teams who delivered it, on the record, where it belongs.

384.    From Mr Albert Mena who was then Financial Secretary.

385.    To Mr John Lester, who has Commissioner for Income Tax led with Albert on the technical negotiation and Mr Terence Rocca who advised throughout on the legal detail of the deal and its effects.

386.    I express to them the sincere gratitude of this House.

387.    And I remind the House and those listening how important this development will be in the context of future assessments if Gibraltar by FATF and other international bodies.

388.    Needless to say, the naysayers were wrong.

389.    Again.

Part X — The Nation's Cash: Then v Now

390.    Madam Speaker, Speaking of naysayers, I turn now to the charge I know is coming — that all of this has been built on a credit card.

391.    So let me meet it head-on.

392.   In this, my last Budget, I once again invite the public to follow the debate with me and see the Estimates Book for themselves.

393.   It is online.

394.   I have just put the link on my disused social media accounts.

395.   So, with the books open, and visible to all our people like no other government has done, let us look at the numbers.

396.    As at 31st March 2011 — the inheritance — the total cash available to the Government of Gibraltar stood at £264.4 million.

397.    But within that figure sat borrowing of £91.5 million.

398.    Remember that was not the direct debt of the Government.

399.    That was £520m when we arrived and over £100m of debt in companies.

400.    So, strip the borrowing out, and the true, free cash position the GSD left behind was £173 million.

401.    That is one of the elements of what the Hon Mr Bossino has previously called ‘the Golden Legacy of the GSD’.

402.    As at 31st March 2026, the total cash available to this Government stands at £282.7 million.

403.   That, Madam Speaker, is a 65% increase in the available cash in a period when inflation has been 46%.

404.   So in real terms, that is a 20% INCREASE in available cash.

405.   By the Hon Mr Bossino’s measure, I guess that should amount to a platinum legacy from this GSLP Liberal Minister for Public Finance.

406.   And how is it made up?

407.   A Consolidated Fund balance of £156.9 million.

408.   An Improvement and Development Fund of £39.8 million.

409.   And reserves of £86 million at the Savings Bank available to dividend up to the Government at will.

410.   (Remember, of course, Madam Speaker, that the £86 million in the Savings Bank has been built up from practically zero (£1,000) which were inherited from the GSD.

411.   Not so ‘golden’ a legacy.)

412.    And within that figure sits borrowing of just £51.5 million.

413.    Strip the borrowing out, and the true, free cash position today is £231.2 million.

414.    Let the House mark it well.

415.    More cash in the bank than in 2011.

416.    And less borrowing within it.

417.    We have more in reserve, and we owe less against it, than the day I walked into Number Six Convent Place.

418.    That is not profligacy.

419.    That is a demonstration of our effective stewardship of our public finances.

Part XI — The Year Just Ended: A Record and a Hat-Trick

420.    Madam Speaker, that is a good place for me now to turn to the year just ended, 2025/2026.

421.   Let me say that I do so with huge pride in our economic performance.

422.    Total revenue for the year reached an outturn of £883.468 million — the highest level of revenue ever achieved in the history of Gibraltar.

423.    We have, for the first time, passed £880 million.

424.    For comparison, Madam Speaker, when I became Chief Minister in 2011, the total revenue reported to the House that July had been £393.7m.

425.    So we have increased the total Revenue of the Government by £500m.

426.    By £487m to be exact.

427.    Madam Speaker, that is an INCREASE in direct revenue to the Government of

428.    125%.

429.    And in that time, as I have told the House, inflation has been 46%.

430.    A remarkable demonstration that, despite the many head winds we have faced, we have been able to increase the revenue year by year with a dip only in the extraordinary pandemic period.

431.    Revenue that we have grown in a way we can be truly proud of on this side of the House and outside it.

432.    And the surplus.

433.    Madam Speaker, this time last year, in this House, I estimated a surplus of £5.324 million.

434.    I am delighted to report today that we have not merely met that estimate — we have very nearly trebled it.

435.    The forecast surplus for 2025/2026 is £15.712 million.

436.    That is the largest surplus this Government has delivered since the pandemic.

437.    And it is the third in a row – also interrupted ONLY by the pandemic, without which we would have had an uninterrupted period of surpluses.

438.    I remind the House that previously, under the GSD, there had been an ‘unforced error’.

439.    Under the GSD the nation had slipped into DEFICIT in 2007.

440.    And not because of pandemic.

441.    Or a world wide financial crisis.

442.    It was as a result of overspending by the GSD in the run up to a General Election.

443.    I think that, by the standards of the accusations they tend to throw at us, that is what the call ‘buy votes’.

444.    But, anyway, that is history.

445.    This surplus, these £15m is NOT history.

446.    It is not a mirage.

447.    It is not a fiction.

448.    It is a fact.

449.    A fact measured in cold, hard CASH.

450.    And it adds to the roll call.

451.   A hat-trick of consecutive surpluses:

452.   £1.908 million in 2023/24;

453.   £9.782 million in 2024/25;

454.   And £15.712 million this year.

455.   Each surplus in the past three years larger than the last.

456.   But NOT YET close to our record surplus of £83m in the financial year 2018/19.

457.    But with continued GSLP Liberal leadership, even those massive surpluses will return.

458.    Of that, I am confident, Madam Speaker.

459.   And yet, Madam Speaker, cast your mind back just twelve months.

460.   The Honourable the Leader of the Opposition rose in this very Chamber and pronounced our surplus "an annual fiction" — figures, he told this House, that were unrealistic and would "never materialise."

461.   Well, he was half right.

462.   Something has failed to materialise this year, Madam Speaker — but it is not the surplus.

463.   We predicted £5 million.

464.   We have delivered £15 million.

465.   Three times over.

466.   The only thing that has failed to materialise, Madam Speaker, is Mr Azopardi's deficit.

467.   Mr Azopardi's deficit fiction.

468.   Mr Azopardi's deficit mis-judgement.

469.   He asked this House last year whether we were dealing in fiction or simply could not add up.

470.   He said we would fall into deficit because we could not achieve our figures.

471.   Now, this year the answer is plain: the only work of fiction in this Chamber last year was the one he wrote.

472.   Ironically, Madam Speaker, the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition was rather fond of Orwell last year in his attack on us – as he has been for years, given that it would appear that the only books he has ever read were 1984 and Animal Farm.

473.   He reached for Orwell not once but twice — branding this Government's stewardship a euphemism "of monumental proportions".

474.   Well, let me hand 1984 back to him, because it is only he who has been living in its pages.

475.   It was Orwell who wrote that the citizen's ultimate command from the bad, controlling government was "to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears”.

476.   But that is NOT what we ask people to do.

477.   In Gibraltar it is the Opposition that ask members of this House and the public to do.

478.   To reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.

479.   To disbelieve the figures which are produced NOT BY MINISTERS but by honest and hard working civil servants and instead to take his fiction on trust.

480.   As the Leader of the Opposition is no doubt aware, given the number of times he quotes him, Orwell said in 1984 that "… freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows".

481.   But the Leader of the Opposition is asking this House and the public to believe that two and two made zero.

482.   He and his team are asking our people to accept obvious, logical contradictions as truth—such as declaring that  where there is an obvious surplus, the public should believe his fiction that there is a deficit.

483.   It is with the Opposition’s view that the objective truth in this Estimates Book would cease to exist entirely.

484.   We predicted a surplus of £5 million.

485.   We have delivered £15 million — three times the promise.

486.   5+5+5=15.

487.   Objective truth, Madam Speaker.

488.   The evidence of our eyes and ears, Madam Speaker, is a surplus, not the deficit he foretold.

489.   And that is a fact.

490.   Not a fiction.

491.   Because two and two still make four however upside down the Hon Messrs Azopardi and Clinton may hold their scientific calculators.

492.   The only work of fiction in this Chamber was the one he authored last year.

493.    Because a nation in the financial intensive care unit, as he recklessly suggested we were in 2021, Madam Speaker, does not run three rising surpluses in a row.

494.    It does not sit third in the world for GDP per head.

495.    The diagnosis is not merely wrong.

496.    It is the opposite of the objective truth.

497.    In 2021 the Honourable Member pronounced Gibraltar dead on arrival in the financial ICU.

498.    The Honourable Member fancied himself the physician of our public finances.

499.    But, although he holds an undoubtedly well deserved doctorate in constitutional law, he is no medical doctor, especially of public finances.

500.   Because Madam Speaker, the only thing in this House that flatlined was his diagnosis.

501.    Madam Speaker, the patient he wrote off has just walked out of the ward with a fifteen-million-pound surplus in its pocket.

502.    I almost asked the Financial Secretary to the words ‘PARABLE OF LAZARUS’ to the cover page of the Draft Estimates Book!

503.    Mr Bossino must be looking at these numbers and feeling and affirmation of faith!

504.    Another MIRACLE.

505.    In fact, when the Hon Leader of the Opposition put Gibraltar in the financial ICU in 2021, an annual fiction in 2025, he was just crying wolf again.

506.   He has been wrong at the top of his voice every year in between.

507.   The patient is thriving, Madam Speaker.

508.   It is only his financial judgement that will never recover.

The Revenue Receipts

509.    So, let me tell the House how it was done — honestly, for there is no other way I know how.

Personal Tax Receipts

510.    Personal tax receipts reached £281 million against an estimate of £260 million — twenty-one million pounds, almost ten per cent, above forecast.

511.    Well done the taxpayers.

512.    Every single one of us.

513.    Well done the tax office and the Minister for Taxation.

514.    Revenue up although we reduced personal taxation sooner after the pandemic than we had expected.

515.    So higher PAYE NOT through any increase in rates.

516.   We cut the top rate of personal tax to twenty-five per cent and kept our manifesto promise not to raise personal taxes.

517.   Increases delivered through growth and fair and proportionate enforcement.

518.    More people in work.

519.    More earnings.

520.    More revenue from a lower rate.

Corporate Tax Receipts

521.    Corporate tax receipts reached £252 million against an estimate of £170 million.

522.   That is £82 million pounds above forecast.

523.   The total forecast outturn for revenue from income taxation is £103 MILLION above the estimate.

524.   I look forward to hearing the congratulations of Honourable Members opposite to Hon Mr Feetham.

525.    Indeed, I will say something the House may now expect.

526.    I acknowledge, with genuine respect, that the corporate tax strategy designed and implemented by the Honourable Nigel Feetham, during his time in this Government, has borne precisely the fruit intended.

527.    If the Honourable Member will forgive me for the slip in protocol and allow him to refer to him by his first name only:

“BUENA NIGEL!”

528.    Where good policy is delivered this Government will be proud to say so.

Personalised Plates Receipts

529.    And a smaller success, but a telling one: the Personalised Vehicle Registration plate scheme has now raised £5 million since its launch.

530.   Revenue raised NOT by reaching into a single taxpayer's pocket, but by a little imagination.

531.   And this will be a gift that will keep on giving!

532.   Because, Madam Speaker, we have an entailed interest here when any number plate is sold on.

533.   I should note we may even have to tighten those provisions up a little.

Excess of Revenue over Estimate

534.   In total, Madam Speaker, Revenue is up £110 MILLION above the estimate.

535.   ONE HUNDRED AND TEN MILLION pounds above the estimate.

536.   A remarkable performance.

Part Xii — Transparency

537.    Madam Speaker, in this debate the Opposition's favourite word is "opaque."

538.    We have a parallel Treasury, they say.

539.    A jungle of opaque companies.

540.    So let me put the facts on the record before they rise to spare them the need to make more mistakes again this year.

541.    This Government publishes the accounts of its companies.

542.    On the 2nd of April 2024, in fulfilment of a clear manifesto commitment, we published online the accounts of every one of our companies — a level of transparency never before enjoyed in the history of Gibraltar.

543.    We now publish information on 63 companies, and the total of full accounts and balance sheets we have placed before the public has reached 840.

544.    Eight hundred and forty sets of accounts, available to any citizen, any journalist, any accountant, any Member of this House, free of charge.

545.   Of these, 550 are a combination of full accounts or balance sheets that have been completed, audited, and filed at Companies House.

546.   The remaining 289 are currently pending finalisation, audit and subsequent filing.

547.   There is a total of 25 companies which are up to date with their filing requirements, and we are working actively to increase that number over the next year.

548.   This continued publication of company information demonstrates our ongoing commitment to openness, accountability, and ensuring that financial information is accessible to the public at the earliest opportunity.

549.    And how many did the Honourable Members opposite publish in their sixteen years in office?

550.    Next to nothing.

551.    They did not comply even with the filing laws they themselves had written.

552.    We turned on the light they had kept switched off.

Part Xiii — Expenditure And Discipline

553.   So, Madam Speaker, with all the lights on, let me turn to expenditure, and let me continue to be candid — for candour is the companion of confidence.

554.    Consolidated Fund Charges for the year came in at £130.4 million against an estimate of £124.6 million — an overspend of £5.7 million, driven principally by pension costs and by the repayments of revenue we make, as a matter of principle, to put money back in the hands of the people to whom it belongs.

555.    The House will find the detail at page 16 of the Estimates Book.

556.    On departmental expenditure, the outturn of £722.3 million stood £78.7 million above the original estimate — just over twelve per cent.

557.   I will take the House through it, head by head, in a few moments.

Changes to Estimates Book 2026/2027 and Appropriation Bill during Committee Stage

558.   But before I start doing that, I am advised by the Financial Secretary that following the printing of the draft Estimates Book, an error was identified in the description of Head 57 – Transfer from Government Surplus.

559.   This does not affect the figures contained in the Appropriation Bill.

560.   However, I am advised by the Financial Secretary that a minor correction is required to the Bill in respect of Head 57, together with amendments to six pages of the Estimates Book affected by this error.

561.   The version of the Estimates Book published online has already been updated with the corrected pages.

562.   However, the copies circulated to Parliament will require the replacement of the affected pages.

563.   On page 2, the current draft shows a 'Transfer from Government Surplus to the Social Assistance Fund' of £30 million in the forecast outturn for 2025/26.

564.   This description is inaccurate, as the Government surplus for 2025/26 is £15.7 million.

565.   It would therefore be incorrect to describe a £30 million transfer as being funded from a surplus that is less than the amount transferred.

566.   It should not have been shown there.

567.   The correct position is that the Government has provided the Social Assistance Fund with an additional £30 million from its cash reserves.

568.   This funding is intended to be transferred to Gibraltar Community Care in order to strengthen the Fund.

569.   I will give notice of the proposed amendments at the Committee Stage.

Part XIV — The Estimates Book, Head By Head

570.    Madam Speaker, as I do every year, I now invite all those watching and listening who wish to follow the economic part of this debate to have the Estimates Book open before them.

571.    I will refer to the relevant pages and heads as I go.

572.    The House will see, alongside each head, four columns: the estimate for the year ahead, 2026/2027; the forecast outturn for the year just ended; the original estimate for that year; and the actual figure for 2024/2025.

573.    Where the forecast outturn rises above the original estimate, there has been an overspend.

574.   In the Estimates Book we report to the House, and the public, head by head, exactly where that money went and why.

575.    We do not hide, massage or masquerade a single line of it.

576.    Let me begin with the three areas where this Government has invested most — and most proudly.

Departmental Reports

577.   Just before I do, I want to alert the House to the fact that I will be laying a report, as I have done in the past years, which sets out the detailed progress of the departments I am responsible for.

578.   Given that a lot of that does not relate to financial performance, I am, again, laying those reports instead of reading them.

Health and Care — Head 26.

579.    Madam Speaker, the single largest head in the entire Estimates of this Government — larger than any other by a distance — is Health and Care.

580.    The original estimate for the year just ended was £224.273 million.

581.    The forecast outturn is £256.100 million.

582.    That is an overspend of £31.827 million.

583.    That overspend represents the expansion of services and the many changes that Health Services in Gibraltar has undergone this year, with more changes to come.

584.    It also represents the relentless rise in the global price of medicines, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.

585.    It is  also the additional clinical staff recruited to meet growing demand.

586.    And it is our unbroken promise that every Gibraltarian who needs treatment abroad shall receive it.

587.    That, Madam Speaker, really does set us apart from any other Overseas Territory and even the UK.

588.    And I do not think that people quite understand that.

589.    So, it is important that I emphasise, Madam Speaker, that our health services are really second to none.

590.    There are mistakes, of course.

591.    Medicine is NOT an exact science.

592.    But the fact is that the service offered is, in most cases, exceptional.

593.    And in saying that we are also clear that there is room for improvement.

594.    The Minister for Health and the new Chief Executive of the GHA, Mr Bosio, are clear about that.

595.    But that should not persuade us that we are not already at an extraordinarily high standard.

596.    As I leave the role of Minister for Public Finance, Madam Speaker, I do want to reflect on the journey that our health services have been on during my time as Chief Minister.

597.    Under successive talented Minister for Health, with the medical and allied health professionals we have improved the GHA.

598.    We have provided the money.

599.    They have provided the commitment and the expertise.

600.    Together, we have made a better GHA.

601.    Again, Madam Speaker, I believe that is a boast that every Chief Minister of Gibraltar could make.

602.    We have built upon the foundations of the work done by the post-war political generation that created these structures that we take for granted today.

603.    But we should never take the Group Practice Medical Scheme for granted.

604.    And we should treasure what it provides.

605.    Not for us an American style system of private care.

606.    And it is not just an American system.

607.    But we do not retreat one inch in the year ahead.

608.   For 2026/2027 we estimate £236.396 million for Health and Care — £12.123 million more than this year's estimate.

609.    Almost a quarter of a billion pounds, Madam Speaker, on the health and care of a community of our size — a scale of investment in the wellbeing of our people that would have been unimaginable in 2011.

610.    So when we hear the usual complaints from the Opposition – as we will no doubt will – about overspending, I ask them to debate with honesty and tell us only one thing:

611.   Which treatments should we no longer provide?

612.   Is it IVF for same sex couples?

613.   Which patient should have been turned away?

614.   Is it those seeking PREM prescriptions to avoid HIV?

615.    Of course, none of the Members on the benches opposite will tell us anything of the sort.

616.   They will not.

617.    Because they cannot.

618.    Because the argument that we should reduce cost is a false one.

619.    In this area of spending, what they are asking us to do is to reduce treatment.

620.    To reduce care.

621.    To turn down patients.

622.    And, in the end, I am sure none of us would do that.

623.    Unless you only see life as a spreadsheet.

624.    And that, Madam Speaker, is no life at all.

625.    And Madam Speaker, where there are efficiencies to the made, we will be ready to make them.

626.    But never at the expense of our patients.

627.    Because let us remember, every single one of us is a potential, likely, future patient of the GHA.

628.    And every patient of the GHA is one of us.

629.    A fellow Gibraltarian or contributor to the Group Practice Medical Scheme.

630.   And often, a more elderly one of us who reaches the age when more are is required.

Elderly And Community Care — Head 11, Social Security.

631.    Indeed, the care of our elderly and our most vulnerable runs through the Social Security head, and through the Social Assistance Fund that funds Gibraltar Community Care.

632.    The original estimate for the year just ended was £15 million.

633.    The forecast outturn is £25.9 million — an overspend of £10.840 million, the bulk of it the additional contribution to the Social Assistance Fund paid through to Community Care.

634.    And from our strengthened reserves, this Government contributed a further £30 million to that same Fund this year.

635.    And in the year ahead?

636.    We go further still.

637.    The 2026/2027 estimate for this head is £30.4 million — £15.3 million more than this year's estimate.

638.    We have very nearly doubled it.

639.    When this Government says the dividend of growth will reach the pensioner and the most vulnerable first, this is not rhetoric.

640.    It is line 11 of the Estimates Book, and the figure has doubled.

641.    And our elderly will see increased state pensions.

642.    They will see equality of pensionable age, which I will detail later in my speech.

643.    And they will see continued commitment to excellent Elderly Residential Services and Domiciliary Care which is not just good.

644.    It is not just better than in most places.

645.   LET US BE CLEAR.

646.    Our ERS and Domiciliary Care provision is UNPARALLED as an unfunded public system of elderly care.

647.    Free to contributors.

648.    That is a demonstration that we invest where it matters.

649.    We have increased the payments for Domiciliary Care and the funding for Community Care to provide it.

650.    And that is a service that is not perfect, but my goodness it is amongst the very best in Europe and provided at no cost to the user.

651.    So when Hon Members Opposite do their job in holding us to account for the service, which is what they are here to do, they must do so with honesty.

652.    That is to say, they must do so accepting that this is something we do which is a very good thing.

653.    It is something they did not do in any meaningful way.

654.    And that would be a fair reflection of reality.

655.   Because they used to provide £760,000 for domiciliary care and we are now providing £7 million for supported living in the community.

656.   That is the order of the turn around we have delivered.

657.   And that should be recognised, even as we are held to account for every penny.

658.    And if there is one thing that is true is that we have to look after all our pensioners, not just those with excellent, gold plated Civil Service pensions.

659.    We have to look after those just with State pensions, which will now be paid earlier to men, from the age of 60.

660.    And we have to do it conscious of why Community Care was created 30 years ago.

661.    As we enter into our Treaty era, we are free to do more on equalisation as a result of the result of our negotiation.

662.    But we must also continue to be careful how we do it.

The Royal Gibraltar Police — Head 35, Policing.

663.    As we must be careful, also, Madam Speaker, to protect our security in the Treaty Era.

664.   We will be safe.

665.   We will be safer than ever before.

666.   Because we will invest in that safety.

667.   A chain link fence could not keep out the world.

668.   I ask my fellow Gibraltarians to remember this:

669.   The IRA bomb threat of 1988 happened with a frontier and with passport checks.

670.   It took the SAS to stop that threat in its tracks.

671.   The passports checks and the chain link fence did nothing to deter them.

672.   The Al Quaeda terrorist who was in Algeciras planning an attack on a shopping centre in the Campo de Gibraltar came into Gibraltar every day whilst we had a frontier and passport checks.

673.   The passport check and the chain link fence did nothing to deter him.

674.   So let us understand that the chain link might have made us feel safe.

675.   But it added very little security beyond the psychological.

676.   So we have invested in cameras.

677.   We have invested in life facial recognition.

678.   But what is more important.

679.   We are investing in people.

680.   The original estimate for policing in the year just ended was £17.009 million.

681.    The forecast outturn is £19.050 million — an overspend of £2.041 million invested in the men and women who keep this community safe.

682.    And in the year ahead, for the first time in the history of Gibraltar, the policing estimate passes twenty million pounds:

683.   £20.046 million for 2026/2027 — £3.037 million more than this year's estimate.

684.    Set that against the £10.5 million the GSD spent in their final year of office, in 2010/11.

685.   The House can now see the truth.

686.   We have doubled what we invest in the Royal Gibraltar Police.

687.   A 100% increase in funding.

688.   Inflation in the period was 46%.

689.   So a 54% real terms increase.

690.   The establishment has grown from 226 officers when I took office to a planned 289 in the year ahead.

691.   63 more officers since we took over.

692.   32 more officers in a single year — as we resource the force for the new frontier the Treaty brings.

693.   And less officers doing desk jobs or jobs which civilians can do.

694.   More officers doing the job of police officers.

695.   Because we have now introduced the ability of the Police recruit civilians directly to do jobs police officers do not need to be doing.

696.    When the Opposition complains in one breath that we spend too much, and in the next that the police are under-resourced, I ask them simply to turn to head 35 and let the figures answer them for themselves.

697.    Because on policing, as in relation to Customs, our law enforcement agencies, BOTH OF THEM, have never been better resourced.

698.    On Customs, Madam Speaker, we have 65 more Customs officers than when we were elected.

699.    A 57% increase.

700.    And on funding, from £4.725m to £11.7m.

701.    A 148% increase.

702.    Lets remind ourselves, Madam Speaker that inflation in the period was 46%.

703.    So 102% above inflation increase in funding.

704.    That is a remarkable increase in people, resources and funding that our public servants in Customs and the RGP need to be aware of.

705.    We would not want them to fall into the trap of thinking that the GSD resourced them better than the GSLP Liberals.

706.    Yes there may be changing styles to how they do their jobs in weeks to come.

707.    But there is no change in the importance of what they do.

708.    Quite the opposite.

709.    And with the men and women of the BCA they will continue to be our frontline as we enter this Treaty Era.

710.    And so, Madam Speaker, I was very happy to see that the muscular presence we have resourced for our law enforcement agencies was becoming a reality on the ground with the arrival of four 4 x 4 vehicles for each of the RGP, Customs and the BCA.

711.    That gives them additional resources to police our land entrance to Gibraltar.

712.    Soon we will also acquire a vessel for the Joint Border Surveillance at sea.

713.    And gone are the days, as under the party of Members Opposite, with the current Leader of the Opposition as a Minister, when our police and our Customs had to rely on confiscated vessels for their maritime assets.

714.   Not such a ‘golden legacy’.

715.   Quite the opposite.

716.    Now we have acquired ONLY under the GSLP Liberals, bespoke vessels for them.

717.    Resources.

718.    Support.

719.    That is what our law enforcement agencies need and that is what they are getting from the Government, Madam Speaker.

720.   And on policing – I warmly welcome Commissioner Owain Richards.

721.   Breath of fresh air.

722.   A different RGP already.

723.   In that respect, if I had a message to leave this House with it is that we should not be afraid of external recruitments to key jobs, especially in the Police, in the post colonial era. Look forward to Police Reform in coming weeks.

724.   Additionally, I very much look forward to the publication of a Command Paper and a Bill on Police Reform in coming weeks.

725.   A reform that must make the Police accountable to the PEOPLE who is who they have to be accountable to.

726.    Now, Madam Speaker, let me walk the House through the relevant parts of the rest of the book.

Consolidated Fund Charges (Page 16).

727.    Consolidated Fund Charges, recurrent, came in at £130.4 million against an estimate of £124.7 million — an overspend of £5.710 million.

728.    The drivers are plainly visible: Pensions, at £64.3 million against an estimate of £61.8 million, up £2.50 million as our pensioner population is properly provided for; and Repayment of Revenue, at £17.75 million against £15 million, up £2.75 million.

729.   Money returned, deliberately, to the taxpayers to whom it belongs.

730.    For the year ahead, recurrent Consolidated Fund Charges are estimated at £138.9  million, with the Repayment of Revenue provision raised to £25 million — £10 million more — so that refunds reach our people promptly and in full, and a further £5 million provided for the repayment of public debt.

Education, The Environment And Climate Change.

731.    Madam Speaker, I want to come to Education, head 44.

732.    The estimate was £68.160 million; the outturn £77.997 million — an overspend of £9.837 million.

733.    And let me tell the House and the people of Gibraltar exactly what drives that figure, because the Opposition will call it an "overspend" and I will call it by its proper name: it is the cost of more Gibraltarians than ever before studying at university, here and abroad, on the most generous scholarship scheme of any people on the face of the earth.

734.   It is the cost of having excellent provision for special educational needs in our schools.

735.   And of maintaining low class sizes that would be the envy of schools in England and Wales, our main benchmark, and most of the European Union.

736.   On scholarships, Madam Speaker, it can never be repeated often enough that it was only as recently as in 1988 that Sir Joe Bossano and the GSLP swept away the old gatekeeping of grades and points, and made the scholarship mandatory.

737.   That is what led to every Gibraltar student with a place at a university to have their tuition, their maintenance and their travel paid by their Government, as of right, not as a favour.

738.    And when the GSLP returned to office as the GSLP Liberals in December 2011, we did not rest on that achievement — we extended it, making the first Master's degree a mandatory scholarship too, so that a Gibraltarian's education need no longer stop at a first degree.

739.    That, Madam Speaker, is what the Education chapter of this Book represents: funding for generations of our children and young people studying better in schools, further in university and beyond, at higher levels, than any generation before them, and coming home to continue to build and strengthen this Rock.

740.    When the Opposition sees an overspend they want to complain about,  I see a doctor, an engineer, a teacher, a lawyer in the making and a child fulfilling their potential in school.

741.    And what I see compared to 2011 is a remarkable turn around.

742.    EVERY SCHOOL in Gibraltar built by this GSLP Liberal administration or the first GSLP administration.

743.    And those school, St Joseph’s, already being entirely refurbished.

744.    And the Jewish school to follow.

745.    For the year ahead we estimate £73.126 million — £4.966 million more than this year's estimate — together with provision for the new school buildings.

746.    And at head 49, the University of Gibraltar, we have doubled the provision, from £500,000 to £1 million, because the education of our young people is the best investment a nation can ever make and the Gibraltar University is one of our PROUDEST achievements.

747.    I cannot compare it to anything in 2011…

748.    Because despite the promises and fanfare, they never built or opened a Gibraltar University.

Summary.

749.    Madam Speaker, analysed head by head, departmental expenditure for the year just ended came in at £722.350 million against an original estimate of £643.638 million — an overspend of £78.712 million, just over twelve per cent.

750.   But that is not waste, Madam Speaker.

751.   It is investment.

752.    Every line of it.

753.    And where there was no case to spend, we did not.

754.   That is why we have applied the new mechanism for controlling overtime, for example.

755.    That is discipline — not the refusal to invest, but the judgement to know precisely where investment belongs and where it does not.

The Year Ahead

756.    For the year ahead, departmental expenditure is estimated at £689.2 million — £33 million below the outturn just recorded, and yet still providing more, not less, for the things that matter most: £12 million more for Health and Care; £15 million more for Community Care; £5 million more for Education; over £3 million more for the Royal Gibraltar Police; and more besides for the airport, the borders and the frontier, as we ready this nation for the Treaty.

757.    A prudent book.

758.    A disciplined book.

759.    And, above all, Madam Speaker, a caring one.

Returning Money to People; Strengthening our Reserves

760.    Madam Speaker, a strong year is measured not only in the surplus it reports but in what that strength allows a Government to do.

761.    This year, our stronger position allowed us to absorb the public sector pay award; to receive the final £4.7 million repayment from the Care Agency; to contribute £3 million to the General Sinking Fund — our rainy-day reserve, strengthened deliberately against future borrowing costs, a contribution the easing of interest rates this year made possible; and to reinstate the £15 million Contribution to Companies, strengthening the entities that serve this community day in and day out.

762.    And from our strengthened reserves, we made two further contributions of real significance: £30 million to the Social Assistance Fund, flowing directly to Gibraltar Community Care; and £56.5 million to the Improvement and Development Fund, which will meet the costs of implementing the Treaty while funding the capital and infrastructure projects that will serve this community for a generation.

763.   Because strong revenue performance do not just produce headline numbers, Madam Speaker.

764.   They provide Government with the capacity to increase reserves, meet commitments, invest in essential services, and prepare for future challenges and opportunities.

765.    And on returning money to the people, let me be clear about a deliberate choice.

766.    We hold a provision for tax repayments — £15 million last year, rising to £25 million in the year ahead — so that refunds reach taxpayers promptly and in full.

767.    We could suppress those refunds and report a still-larger surplus to flatter ourselves at this despatch box.

768.    We choose not to.

769.    That accusation, when levelled against us is false.

770.    But it was true of the party of Members opposite, who even then still reported a deficit in 2007, despite hanging on to taxpayers money long after it should have been refunded to them.

771.    Money owed to the people of Gibraltar belongs in the hands of the people of Gibraltar — and there, without delay, it must go.

Employment

772.   Because, Madam Speaker, when an economy is truly thriving,  apart from creating tax revenue for the Government, it creates  opportunity.

773.   Nowhere is that more evident than in our labour market.

774.   And even before I turn to the figures, let me say this:

775.   The success of any employment policy is shown when the people who are seeking work are actually able to find it.

776.   That is the true test by which any employment strategy should be judged.

777.   It is the benchmark against which every Government should be measured.

778.   And by that measure, Madam Speaker, this Government undoubtedly continues to deliver.

779.   I am therefore immensely proud to report to this House that the YEARLY AVERAGE for Gibraltarians registered unemployed in 2025 was just 16.

780.   One. Six.

781.   Sixteen.

782.   To put that into its proper historical perspective, the comparable figure for 2011 stood at 442.

783.   Four. Four. Two.

784.   And I am not describing the England team’s formation in the World Cup.

785.   I am giving the GSD’s unemployment figure.

786.   A difference of 426.

787.   The equivalent of a whole year of live births.

788.   An extraordinary 96.4% reduction in unemployment since 2011.

789.   One of the key differences between them and us.

790.   One of the key demonstrations of what we care about compared to them.

791.   Those figures are remarkable in themselves.

792.   But they also tell a much bigger story.

793.   They tell the story of a Government that has consistently created opportunity, strengthened confidence in our economy and helped more of our people into work.

794.   And we have done so in the teeth of an Opposition that has been talking down that same economy as often as they could.

795.   At every turn.

796.   And in every respect.

797.   Yet, despite that, our unemployment figures demonstrate that our success is not temporary.

798.   It is not accidental.

799.   It is not a one-off.

800.   It has been sustained, year after year.

801.   And, Madam Speaker, we continue to build on that success which we have developed over a decade and a half.

802.   During the second quarter of this year, unemployment has continued to fall, despite already being at historically low levels.

803.   The average for the second quarter of this year has fallen even further, to just 7, representing a 98.6% reduction in unemployment compared with the second quarter of 2012.

804.   Madam Speaker, the House will be pleased to know that, as at June 2026, the number of Gibraltarians registered as unemployed stands at just 9.

805.   These are not just a statistic for this House to record.

806.   They are people who need a job.

807.   They are people who will not be left behind by us.

808.   They are our people.

809.   And we will find them jobs.

810.   As we have for all those who have registered as seeking employment.

811.   People who have found work.

812.   Families with greater financial security.

813.   Futures that are brighter than before.

814.   That, Madam Speaker, is what success truly looks like.

815.   But these results have not come about by magic or by chance.

816.   They have they not materialised overnight.

817.   They are the result of clear policies and priorities set by a Government that has remained focused on creating job opportunity.

818.   Focused on ensuring that those who want to work are able to do so.

819.   That is exactly what this Government has done.

820.   And exactly what the Opposition has criticised.

821.   We called our focused policy priority the ‘Future Job Strategy’.

822.   They called that ‘false jobs strategy.’

823.   But under the GSLP Liberals, our ongoing commitment is clear.

824.   Whatever Members Opposite say:

825.   We will keep delivering jobs.

826.   We will keep innovating policies to create those jobs.

827.   And we will keep standing up for every worker, every business and every opportunity that strengthens Gibraltar’s economy and creates prosperity for our community.

828.   Madam Speaker, the work does not end here, we have come too far to stand still.

829.   So we will continue investing in our people and we will continue responding to the changing needs of employers.

830.   Because our objective is simple:

831.   To continue to ensure that Gibraltar remains a place where opportunity exists for everyone who is prepared to seize it.

832.   A Gibraltar with a job market that is stronger.

833.   More resilient.

834.   More ambitious and full of opportunity.

835.   That is the Gibraltar we are building.

836.   And that is precisely what this Government will continue to deliver.

837.   And that is possible, Madam Speaker, because the job market has grown to a record high.

838.   The number of employee jobs in Gibraltar is up to 32,206.

839.   The number when we took over was 22,247.

840.   We have added 10,000 jobs Madam Speaker in 15 years.

841.   That is an average of 664 jobs a year.

842.   Of those 10,000 jobs we have added, approximately 6,500 have been for non-residents – which is the largest accessible pool of labour.

843.   The balance has gone to residents and results in the record low number of people registered as seeking employment.

844.   These are incredible results, Madam Speaker, and I could not be prouder of them.

845.   Before I conclude on employment, Madam Speaker, I wish to place on record my sincere appreciation to the brilliant officers of the Department of Employment, led by the INDOMITABLE Debbie Garcia, and the many other public servants across Government whose professionalism, commitment and tireless work makes these achievements possible.

846.   Much of what they do is never seen.

847.   But the great results are.

848.   I thank them for serving our community with distinction and dedication every single day.

849.   They have every reason to be proud of what they have helped achieve, despite the Opposition’s opposition.

850.   And how lucky they are to have a Minister as committed and effective as Christian Santos to be working with.

Part XVI — The Year Ahead

851.    Madam Speaker, I turn now to the year ahead, 2026/2027.

852.   A summary is set out on page 1 of the Estimates Book.

853.    For the current financial year, we project a surplus of £11 million — comfortably above the £9.782 million we achieved in 2024/25.

854.   We maintain our estimate prudently below the exceptional £15.712 million of the year just ended.

855.    That is the right thing to do.

856.   Because, Madam Speaker, a higher surplus than the estimate is never an invitation to abandon discipline.

857.    It is a reason to keep faith with the prudence that delivered it.

858.    We estimate revenue at £854.1 million — some £29 million below the outturn just achieved.

859.    That is not any hint of pessimism about our anticipated performance.

860.   It is prudence.

861.    That is why this Government does not over-provide its revenue.

862.    We estimate below the line, deliberately.

863.   So, if the world turns against us we are not caught short.

864.   And, Madam Speaker, in these past 15 years the world has turned against us more than once!

865.    But the year ahead brings two structural changes to the architecture of our public finances.

866.    The first is a new line in the Estimates: the Global Minimum Tax.

867.    As Gibraltar implements the OECD's Pillar Two framework, we estimate at least £25 million will be collected in the year ahead.

868.    Gibraltar meets its international obligations in full.

869.   With the Hon Mr Feetham setting tax policy and the brilliant team at the Tax Office, we turn those international obligations to our advantage.

870.    The second is the economic effect of the systemic changes coming to our frontier next week.

871.    The old order gives way to the new before our eyes.

872.   And this Budget is the bridge between them.

873.    Import Duty, which has for generations been a key pillar of our national revenue, is estimated this year at just £20 million.

874.   That reflects, Madam Speaker, only the three months of the financial year before the Treaty takes effect.

875.    Because Import Duty now becomes the past.

876.   And in its place we implement an entirely new line: Transaction Tax.

877.   That is conservatively estimated at £80 million for the remainder of the year.

878.   This year the rate will be fixed at 15%.

879.   Next year it will rise to 16%.

880.   Then it will settle at a rate which is no lower than the lowest rate of VAT in the EU.

881.   That is currently the 17% applicable in Luxembourg.

882.   We anticipate therefore, that 17% will be the rate of Transaction Tax as from year 3 of full application of the Treaty.

883.   But we must always remember that the rate is set by the formula.

884.   It is NOT cast in stone.

885.   On expenditure, we project a total of £843.134 million.

886.    Departmental expenditure of £689.2 million sits £33 million below the outturn just recorded, while still providing for substantial new investment in the things that matter most.

887.    And though interest rates fell over the year from 4.5 to 3.75 per cent, we have prudently assumed our borrowing costs will hold broadly level.

888.   That is also an important way in which we protect ourselves economically in an uncertain world, by planning for the storm although we hope it will not come.

Part XVII — Borrowing, Covid and The Treaty: The Truth About Our Debt

889.    Madam Speaker, now let me turn directly to debt — and take it head-on, because I will not leave the field open to those opposite who love to trade in fear.

890.    The full cost of the COVID-19 pandemic to the economy of Gibraltar was £425 million.

891.    And yet — through disciplined control of spending and the carefully judged reopening of our economy — we never needed to draw the full £500 million facility we established to weather it.

892.    In March 2025 we even repaid £1.5 million of it, from surplus, because this Government reduces its debt whenever it responsibly can.

893.    We have now drawn a further £51.5 million under that same facility — not for COVID, but for the Treaty: for the security infrastructure and the measures required to keep this community safe as a new frontier regime begins.

894.    That brings total borrowing under the facility to £475 million.

895.    Henceforth it is the COVID, Treaty and Security facility.

896.   And that money can be seen to have been borrowed for truly cross generational purposes.

897.    And here are the figures the Opposition will not read into the record, so I shall read them myself.

898.    Personal taxation, as a share of our economy, has fallen — from 13.5 per cent of GDP when I took office to 9.8 per cent today.

899.    A smaller slice of a very much larger cake.

900.   Madam Speaker, permit me, in this final Budget, a word about my predecessor’s practice in this debate.

901.   Sir Peter Caruana referred in this House to a sound economic doctrine, and I will quote him exactly.

902.   It is, he said in his 2006 Budget, "economically speaking, misconceived" to judge the size of the state by absolute pounds and pence.

903.   He said that the true measure is its cost "as a percentage of GDP."

904.   He was right.

905.   And in his final Budget, in 2011, he measured his own legacy by that yardstick, telling this House with pride that the personal income tax burden had fallen by over fifty per cent.

906.   The measure itself, Madam Speaker, he had borrowed — as he graciously acknowledged in his very first Budget — from "the criteria devised" by the Father of this House, Sir Joe Bossano.

907.   So let this final Budget of mine be judged by the same standard: the standard of Bossano, adopted by Caruana, and now reflected in what I am about to report to the House.

908.   When we took office, personal taxation in Gibraltar amounted to 13.5 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product. Today it stands at 9.8 per cent.

909.   We have cut the share of the nation's income taken from personal incomes by more than a quarter — while trebling the size of the economy, multiplying the health budget, and delivering record surpluses.

910.   And consider, Madam Speaker, what the rest of the world was doing in those same years.

911.   Across the OECD, the personal income tax take rose according to its Revenue Statistics publication for 2025.

912.    It rose in thirty-one of the OECD's thirty-eight member nations.

913.   That includes Britain, Germany and Spain.

914.   While the great economies of the world reached deeper into their citizens' pay packets, this small nation reached less.

915.   And remember what the citizen of those countries pays on top of income taxes.

916.   They also capital gains tax; inheritance tax; social charges.

917.    That provides a total direct tax burden of 34, 37 and 38% of respectively in those nations as a share of GDP.

918.   The Gibraltarian pays no capital gains tax.

919.   No inheritance tax.

920.   No wealth tax.

921.   There is no death duty on grandma's flat and no levy on a lifetime's savings.

922.   That is not an accident of geography.

923.   It is the work of decades of Gibraltarian self-government.

924.   And so, Madam Speaker, judged by the doctrine of the man who successfully led the party opposite for twenty three years, this Government has not merely maintained the low-tax economy.

925.   We have delivered the lowest personal tax burden, as a share of what Gibraltar produces, in the modern history of the Rock.

926.   And we did it while improving our public services.

927.   Not for us the austerity of places elsewhere.

928.   Not for us the austerity promoted by the Hon Mr Clinton and enthusiastically adopted by the Hon Mr Azopardi.

929.   Less tax as a share of GDP without austerity.

930.   Better by the standards of their former, successful leader.

931.   And without having fallen for the siren calls of their current, repeatedly failed, leadership.

932.   I certainly commend that performance to the House.

Debt

933.   And on Debt, despite the constant refrain from Member’s opposite, we have also done extraordinarily well.

934.   Net public debt stands at 21.4 per cent of GDP.

935.    Aggregate debt at 27.5 per cent.

936.    As the House should be aware, and the public too, the borrowing ceiling is 40 per cent of Net Debt.

937.   That is not something we decided.

938.   It was decided by them, Madam Speaker.

939.   It is provided for under the GSD’s statutory provisions contained in the Public Finance (Borrowing Powers) Act.

940.   Section 3 (1) specifically says this under the subtitle, ‘Power to borrow’.

“3.(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Government may, with the prior approval of the Minister, from time to time, in addition to any other sums of money that it is for the time being authorised to borrow under any law, borrow any sum or sums of money provided that the Government shall not draw down or incur any additional Public Debt nor without the leave of the House by Resolution draw on the Cash Reserves in manner that will cause–

(i)          the Net Public Debt after such borrowing or drawing to exceed the higher of £300,000,000 or forty per cent of Gibraltar’s Gross Domestic Product; or

(ii)         the Annual Debt Service Ratio to exceed 8%.”

941.   We are well beneath that borrowing limit.

942.   We have a headroom of £604.5 million of further borrowing which we have no intention of taking.

943.   But we have it, should be need it .

944.   And that is essential, Madam Speaker.

945.   Because in the event of a crisis, and we know we cannot discount these, we have that option if necessary.

946.    So be very sceptical, Madam Speaker, when Honourable Members opposite rises to tell this House of a mountain of debt, of a true debt of one billion, or one-point-eight billion, or two-point-two billion — whichever figure he has settled upon this year, for it changes with the weather — I ask the House to remember this.

947.    The same voices made the same predictions every year for fifteen years.

948.    They told us the bubble would burst.

949.    They told us bankruptcy was around the corner.

950.    And every single year, the sun came up over the Rock, and Gibraltar was richer, and the worker was better paid.

951.    There is a word for a prophecy of doom that fails fifteen years running.

952.    The word is "wrong."

953.   But I want take matters a little further this year as I set out the position in Hansard at the tail end of my premiership.

954.   I have asked the Financial Secretary, Madam Speaker, to produce a Certificate under Section 3, subsection (2) of the GSD’s Public Finance (Borrowing Powers) Act 2008.

955.   That subsection reads as follows:

“(2) For the purposes of any person (including but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing the lender of any Public Debt), a Certificate of the Financial Secretary shall be conclusive as to the level or extent at any time, or in respect of any specific period of time, of any of the following–

(i)          Aggregate Public Debt;

(ii)         Gross Domestic Product;

(iii)       Consolidated Fund Recurrent Annual Revenue;

(iv)       Annual Debt Service Ratio;

(v)   Net Public Debt.”

956.    So, Madam Speaker, I produce for the House, as conclusive evidence, a Certificate from the Financial Secretary which sets out the following:

“Public Finance (Borrowing Powers) Act 2008 - Section 3(2)

I, Charles Santos, Financial Secretary to His Majesty's Government of Gibraltar, in exercise of the powers conferred upon me by section 3(2) of the Public Finance (Borrowing Powers) Act 2008 (the "Act"), HEREBY CERTIFY that, as at 1st April 2026, the following figures are the official figures for the purposes of the Act:

Item

Amount

Aggregate Public Debt

£893.2m

Gross Domestic Product (latest estimate figure 2025/2026)

£3,252.6m

Consolidated Fund Recurrent Annual Revenue (year ended 31 March 2026)

£883.5m

Annual Debt Service Ratio

3.89%

Net Public Debt

£696.5m”

957.   And those are the LEGALLY CONCLUSIVE figures, Madam Speaker.

958.   There is no work around.

959.   There is no argument, Madam Speaker.

960.   These are, in keeping with the GSD’s own piece of legislation, unamended by us in this sub-section in any relevant respect.

961.   And Madam Speaker, given the very precise wording of subsection (2) which binds ‘any person’, anyone in this House who considers themselves a person is legally bound to accept these figures by the application of GSD legal principles.

962.   I know that they have always considered themselves paragons of democracy.

963.   So what better than a dose of GSD Democracy when it comes to a legally conclusive position on debt.

964.   Although, the principles of GSD Democracy always reminded me of that long awaited ‘Guns & Roses’ album.

965.   CHINESE DEMOCRACY.

966.   Not their best.

967.   But an excellent illustration of conflicting principles…

£500 Million Facility – COVID-19 Borrowing, Treaty and Security

968.   Anyway, Madam Speaker, the Debt position is conclusively clear.

969.   Our Net Debt is £696.5m.

970.   We wanted it to be much less but as we all know, something happened.

971.   The pandemic happened.

972.   That led to us having to borrow more than we ever expected.

973.   If it had not been for the pandemic, our Net Debt now would be in the region of £200m.

974.    I remind the House that we added the pandemic debt with the support of Members opposite.

975.   We did that in order to fund the payment of salaries to all our workers and frontier workers.

976.   We did it to get our GHA funded.

977.   We did the right thing, in the right way, with the full support of the whole House.

978.   And Madam Speaker, we did it with the full support of our bankers.

979.   We have the loan facility available, literally at our request.

980.   I still remember those dark days, Madam Speaker.

981.   The long hours with the former Financial Secretary, Mr Mena.

982.   And I remember, also, Madam Speaker, calling the Financial Secretary to HM Treasury in London and securing a UK Government Sovereign Guarantee over the phone.

983.   A Sovereign Guarantee that was in place within hours.

984.   Agreed by Jesse Norman on the phone.

985.   Supported by the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor and the first Lord of the Treasury, the Prime Minister.

986.   And that has continued Madam Speaker.

987.   I am very happy to report to the House that the UK is prepared to continue the said Sovereign Guarantee.

988.   I will come to that in a moment.

989.   But the important thing now is the refinancing.

990.   As the House knows, in 2023, with the full support of the UK Government, we rolled over the £500 million facility for a further three years.

991.   At that time, interest rates were rising rapidly.

992.   The markets were volatile.

993.   It would not have been prudent to lock the Government into a long-term fixed arrangement under those market conditions.

994.   This was in the direct aftermath of the Liz Truss ‘mini-Budget’.

995.   Although, to be honest Madam Speaker, I do not often refer to it as just a ‘mini budget’ in my mind.

996.   I think of it as a huge something else.

Clinton on the £500m Debt

997.   Indeed, it is worth remembering that, had we followed the advice of Honourable Member opposite, Gibraltar would now be facing significantly higher borrowing costs over the next twenty years.

998.   I have previously explained this in detail to the House.

999.   I took the House last year through the additional millions it would have cost the taxpayer each year if we had followed Mr Clinton’s advice.

1000.Mr Clinton was panicking.

1001.Mr Clinton was telling us to fix at that time, even though the interest rates were at a high.

1002.He told us that was prudent…

1003.In fact, Madam Speaker, the Hon. Mr Clinton has continually pretended to instruct this House, without rest, for three years on when and how we should refinance the Covid debt we took on together.

1004.The House will recall the position he set out.

1005.When, in December 2023, we declined to shackle this country into a twenty-five-year facility at the very summit of the interest-rate cycle, and took instead a three-year facility running to December 2026 — so that we might refinance for the long term once rates had fallen — the Hon. Member pronounced it reckless.

1006.He demanded we lock in, there and then.

1007.He mocked my judgement that rates would be lower by 2026: did I have a crystal ball, he asked, and might he borrow it?

1008.He called it a fig leaf.

1009.He clearly relied on his crystal ball gazing as more reliable than mine.

1010.He told this House I could not possibly know where rates would stand in three years' time because my crystal ball was not as good as his.

1011.All about crystal balls, Madam Speaker.

1012.Well, Madam Speaker, the three years are all but up — and the House may now judge whose balls were most reliable – the crystal variety, of course!

1013.When Mr Clinton implored me to fix this country's borrowing for a generation, the Bank of England base rate stood at 5.25%.

1014.Today it stands at 3.75% — a full point and a half lower.

1015.And here is the part the Hon. Member will care for least:

1016.I did not need rates to keep tumbling to be proved right.

1017.Even though the rate has been held at 3.75% throughout this year, against a backdrop of conflict in the Middle East and its pressure on global energy prices, it still sits a point and a half beneath the level at which he begged me to chain us.

1018.I needed only to refuse to borrow long at the top of the market.

1019.And that, Madam Speaker, is exactly what I did.

1020.It was a no brainer.

1021.But Mr Clinton could not see it.

1022.For me, it was never a quarrel about pride, as I think it was for him.

1023.It was a quarrel about money — the people's money.

1024.On the very arithmetic I set before this House last year — some fifty-five million pounds saved, across the life of the facility, for every half-point of interest — refinancing a point and a half below the course Mr Clinton pressed upon us is a saving of the order of one hundred and sixty-five million pounds: one hundred and sixty-five million pounds that his approach would have handed, for nothing, to the banks.

1025.He would have dressed it up as prudence.

1026.I call it a demonstration of the cost of him panicking.

1027.I call it a hugely expensive mistake.

1028.I call it what he himself has proved it to be: unaffordably wrong.

1029.And if any Member doubts that Gibraltar can refinance on better terms, they need only turn to Mr Clinton's own speech of last year, in which he noted — with evident discomfort — that the £75 million facility which fell due in 2025 had been refinanced at a margin of just fifteen basis points over the Bank of England's rate; better, as he was good enough to concede, than the terms once obtained under a United Kingdom sovereign guarantee.

1030.So the refinancing he taught us to dread now arrives, and it arrives on precisely the terms he assured us were beyond our reach.

1031.I said it was right to wait.

1032.I was right to wait.

1033.And I was right, Madam Speaker, because then as now I backed the judgement of the Government and the current and former Financial Secretaries, and the standing of Gibraltar, over the panicked counsel of the Hon. Member opposite.

1034.Now, we are as close as possible to the 35 year average of interest rates.

1035.Now is the time to fix.

The 500m Deal

1036.I have always maintained that, before the end of my term as Chief Minister, I would secure what I believed to be the best possible long-term financing arrangement for the people of Gibraltar in respect of this £500 million borrowing.

1037.To achieve this, we tested the international market to assess investor appetite for Gibraltar and to identify those willing to take on this debt at the right price and on favourable terms to both parties.

1038.Over the past six months, we have worked with our bankers at NATWEST Bank and engaged extensively with several leading international investors (UK and US based), all of whom have expressed a strong interest in investing in Gibraltar.

1039.The level of support has been unprecedented.

1040.Investor demand has significantly exceeded the £475 we sought.

1041.This is a clear demonstration not only of the strength and resilience of our economy, but also of the confidence that major financial institutions and investors have in Gibraltar and in our long-term prospects.

1042.All this, Madam Speaker, despite the constant talking down of our public finances and our economy by Member opposite who do nothing to help our covenant.

1043.Because, Madam Speaker, Mr Clinton doesn’t just get it wrong on when we should fix our repayments, he gets it wrong on so much else too about the whole scheme of our finances.

1044.Luckily, the real experts – the lenders who assess borrowers all the time - do not agree with the pretend experts – namely, him.

1045.Most importantly, we have secured this level of market interest at the same rate as we would have had with the UK Sovereign Guarantee without the requirement of a UK sovereign guarantee.

1046.Let me read that again for the House and for those watching and listening, Madam Speaker.

1047.We have secured this level of market interest at the same rate as we would have had with the UK Sovereign Guarantee without the requirement of a UK sovereign guarantee.

1048.And that is not because the UK Government is unwilling to support Gibraltar.

1049.Quite the opposite is true.

1050.The UK has made clear, in writing, that it remained open to exploring a further renewal of the guarantee.

1051.Indeed, politically, it had been agreed.

1052.Whilst the UK Government has supported Gibraltar over the past six years in relation to the £500 million facility, we must all be very proud indeed to have demonstrated that we can borrow on the same terms now on our own two feet.

1053.But it is also true to say that the level of support we have received from a Conservative and a Labour administration on this is a testament to the confidence there is in the Public Finances of Gibraltar under our stewardship and the economy of Gibraltar.

1054.I take this opportunity to thank the current and previous UK Government for all its support in relation to the Covid 19 facility over the past six years.

1055.That is a sincere thanks, on a quick count, to the four Prime Ministers we have had in that guarantee period!

1056.But, simply at this time, Madam Speaker, we were advised that there would be NO difference in the interest rates that we would be offered with or without the UK Sovereign Guarantee.

1057.We are borrowing at the same rates.

1058.That is to say, Madam Speaker, Gibraltar would be able to borrow at the same rate as the UK.

1059.This has happened for two reasons.

1060.The first is obvious.

1061.For six years we have been paying our way with the Sovereign Guarantee in place not even having to be remotely even thought of.

1062.There has been no question of resort to the Guarantee.

1063.Additionally, the second reason arises as a result of transactions we have been involved in having been rated by an international rating house.

1064.I will explain those transactions in a moment, Madam Speaker.

1065.The rating given to Gibraltar has been of a grade sufficient to enable us to borrow as if we had the UK Sovereign Guarantee but without it.

1066.Incredible really, Madam Speaker.

1067.Whilst here we are being talked down by the Hon Members opposite, in the real world financial institutions who are x-raying our economy, our public finances and our borrowing (directly and indirectly through Government companies) are rating us highly.

1068.Documentation has now been agreed.

1069.We are being priced LITERALLY in the next 24 to 72 hours.

1070.The transaction is structured across three maturity tranches to align both HMGOG and the investors. It is comprised of three separate tranches of 15-year, 20-year, and 25-year maturity. The 20-year tranche features scheduled annual amortisation.

1071.Most of the financing is concentrated within the 20-year maturity profile, reflecting the strongest investor demand at this tenor and matching HMGOG’s demand for a 20 year private placement note.

1072.The inclusion of the shorter 15-year and longer 25-year tranches accommodated differing investor appetite across the maturity spectrum while supporting efficient execution and a diversified funding profile.

1073.I will have a final rate to report to the House by the time I reply.

1074.Indeed, I am hopeful that, by the conclusion of this Budget Debate, we will have entirely completed the long-term financing arrangement that refinances this debt.

1075.In another respect, Madam Speaker, JOB DONE.

1076.I am happy to have resolved this matter for our people before I depart the Office I have proudly held for nearly 15 years.

1077.The facility we have negotiated is unique, both in its repayment structure and in its overall terms.

1078.Honourable Members may also have noticed the inclusion of £5 million under "Repayment of Public Debt" in the 2026/27 Estimates on page 1 of the Budget Book.

1079.Today, I am making a clear commitment that, from this financial year onwards, His Majesty's Government of Gibraltar will make a minimum annual contribution towards reducing public debt of £5 million or 10% of the annual surplus, whichever is the greater.

1080.This marks the beginning of a disciplined and sustained programme of debt reduction, ensuring that Gibraltar continues to strengthen its public finances while investing responsibly in its future.

1081.But that is not the only ‘debt repayment plan’ we have.

1082.Because I expect we will have more than enough money to repay this debt thanks to another GSLP Liberal innovation.

The Gibraltar Sovereign Wealth Fund

1083.Madam Speaker, I already told the Nation in my New Year’s Statement that we have established a Gibraltar Sovereign Wealth Fund.

1084.Today I am able to give the details of this nascent but important development.

1085.As I will demonstrate with the explanation I will provide, the Sovereign Wealth Fund we have established for Gibraltar is currently conservatively estimated to grow to provide between 700 to 1,000 million pounds – that is to say, 1 BILLION POUNDS – in the next 35 years.

1086.Those numbers are calculated based on assumed growth of average growth of the capital value of the underlying assets of between 3.5% or 5% over the period.

1087.More then enough to pay off the COVID DEBT and have up to double left over!

1088.The first investments our fund has made are in the United Kingdom elderly care sector.

1089.And I emphasise the use of the word ‘our’ in my explanations here as I want to be clear that this fund belongs to every single one of us.

1090.Even the ones who talk down our economy and make our jobs harder.

1091.My purpose today is to record the facts plainly.

1092.To set out how the investments are structured, the value that secures them, the protections the Government holds, and the income and value that will accrue to the people of Gibraltar over time.

1093.There is one feature of this programme that I want the House to understand from the outset, because it is the heart of what makes it prudent.

1094.The Government has not spent a single pound of the people's savings to acquire these assets.

1095.It has not committed capital.

1096.What the Government has done is lend its credit, and only its credit, to support the financing that acquired them.

1097.Our credit is valuable for the very reason I have just explained to the House that we can dispense with the UK Sovereign Guarantee.

1098.Because we are now able to borrow at rates associated with a very high private rating.

1099.In return for that support, Gibraltar receives a dependable annual fee and a substantial share of the assets themselves over time.

1100.This is the innovation, Madam Speaker.

1101.Value created for our people without capital drawn from the public purse.

1102.Madam Speaker, I want the House to understand that the approach we have taken is neither novel nor untested.

1103.The use of public credit to support privately financed assets, known in the United Kingdom as private finance, is long established and widespread.

1104.For decades, central government, the National Health Service and local authorities across Britain have used structures of this kind to fund hospitals, schools, roads and care infrastructure.

1105.It is today a mainstream instrument of public finance in one of the most sophisticated economies in the world.

1106.We are not inventing something that has not been done before.

1107.We are applying a proven approach.

1108.The difference is that, in these structures, we are not receiving private money for public buildings or services in Gibraltar.

1109.We are supporting private finance in the supply of services in the United Kingdom in a matter that makes the finance less expensive for the private sector entities that provide it.

1110.The Government has deliberately chosen the most defensive corner of the market: regulated elderly care homes, underpinned by statutory demand and secured against tangible real estate.

1111.These are assets whose income is steady and predictable, resilient through economic cycles and underpinned by an ageing population.

1112.We have applied a well-established approach to them conservatively, in a manner designed throughout to protect the public purse.

1113.The financing structure that the Government has put in place is, by any proper measure, a sound and well-secured commitment.

1114.It is supported at every level by substantial protections: cash reserves, a rated insurer, the operators' own capital, and real estate whose value considerably exceeds the obligations it underpins.

1115.This is a carefully layered security structure of the kind that any prudent institutional investor would recognise as robust.

1116.On the strength of that structure, the Government has secured for the public BOTH a dependable stream of fee income today and, of equal importance, a growing ownership interest in the underlying properties over time.

1117.These are real, income-producing assets that will deliver enduring value to the public balance sheet.

1118.The portfolio is under the stewardship of experienced professionals, operating within a framework of protections that the Government has insisted upon and put firmly in place.

1119.Taken together, the quality of the security, the calibre of the management, and the tangible returns flowing to the public make this precisely the kind of careful and deliberate investment that government ought to undertake — one that strengthens the national balance sheet and does so on terms that are prudent, transparent, and designed to serve the long-term public interest.

How the investments are structured: credit, not capital

1120.Each portfolio was acquired using debt raised in the capital markets, not money from Gibraltar.

1121.The financing was provided through notes issued by dedicated, ring-fenced issuing companies, and through institutional lending, totalling some £544.7 million across the three portfolios.

No public capital committed.

1122.The Government advanced no cash.

1123.Our role is that of credit support provider.

1124.Through a Payment Deed for each portfolio it stands behind the rent that services the debt, and, for one of the entities, it fronts a dedicated rental indemnity insurance policy.

1125.The capital was provided by third-party noteholders and lenders.

Fully amortising over 35 years.

1126.The financing is structured to repay in full over its term.

1127.At the end of the term the real estate is unencumbered.

1128.Madam Speaker, I want to be precise about how the Government's support works.

1129.Under the Payment Deed, the Government's obligation is a direct, primary one: where there is ever a shortfall or delay in the repayments due, the Government can be called upon to make it good.

1130.What makes the position safe is that the financing is surrounded by layers of cash, mutual support and insurance that protect from any such exposure.

1131.These layers reduce the chance of a call and provide the means of recovery. In practice, the payment obligations in cases of any shortfall would be met as follows:

First, the homes' own cash.

1132.A shortfall is met first from the available cash held in the care homes in that particular portfolio.

Second, the other portfolios.

1133.The portfolios support one another, so the others stand behind it by applying the available cash in those portfolios (and noting that some portfolios have unencumbered properties with an estimated value in aggregate of between £ 26.7m and £37.5m, affording further asset cover).

Third, amounts in segregated reserve deposit accounts.

1134.Dedicated and segregated cash reserves set aside by the portfolio (not HMGOG monies) and held in deposit accounts for this protective purpose are drawn on until they are used up (this applies to the some of the portfolios; and in the case of another, a rated insurance policy presently serves the same purpose today).

Fourth, the Government and its fellow investors together.

1135.Any further amount is shared equally, half from the Government's surplus earned and accumulated from the portfolio to date and the other half from the vehicles of its fellow investors, until the Government’s earned surplus is used up.

Finally, the fellow investors.

1136.Anything still remaining is met in full by the vehicles of its fellow investors.

1137.In short, therefore, the Government's exposure is very limited.

1138.Where its obligations are triggered, these arrangements work to repay it, with HMGOG only remaining partially liable under the reimbursement waterfall liable (up to the amount of its earnings) after the use of the available cash across the portfolios and after the dedicated and segregated cash deposits (or insurance amounts in the case of Hartford) are exhausted.

Why The Elderly Care Sector

1139.The investments are in the United Kingdom elderly care sector.

1140.This sector is defensive, resilient through economic cycles, underpinned by ageing demographics, and secured against tangible real estate.

1141.For a Government committed to protecting the vulnerable and guaranteeing dignity in ageing, standing behind professionally operated, regulated care-home portfolios aligns both our financial and social objectives.

1142.The three portfolios are diversified by operator, region and type of care, spanning general residential, nursing, dementia and specialist provision.

1143.Underpinning the demand for these homes is a statutory foundation.

1144.In the United Kingdom, local authorities are under a legal duty, principally under the Care Act 2014, both to arrange care for those assessed as needing it and to meet its cost where the individual cannot.

1145.A substantial proportion of the residents in these homes are funded on precisely this basis.

1146.This is not discretionary expenditure that can be switched off in a downturn.

1147.It is a continuing legal obligation to provide, and to pay for, the care of an ageing population.

1148.We have validated both the existence of that duty and the public funding that stands behind it, and it is what gives the income securing this financing its defensive, through-the-cycle quality.

Three Foundation Portfolios

1149.The debt supported by the Government totals £544.7 million, secured against care-home real estate valued today at £722.9 million.

1150.This leaves a surplus of value over debt of £178.2 million.

1151.A surplus already equal to one third of the debt itself.

Loan To Value

1152.Because the Government's exposure is to the debt rather than to invested capital, a relevant measure of safety is the value of the property against the debt that finances it.

1153.On that measure the position is conservative and has strengthened.

1154.At acquisition, the two of the portfolios were financed at a discount of approximately 9.2% to valuation, equivalent to a loan-to-value of roughly 90.8%, with the debt sized at a 5.23% debt yield against a 4.75% valuation capitalisation rate.

1155.On today's valuations the blended loan-to-value has fallen to 75.3%, and to 72.0% once the cash reserves held for two of the portfolios are netted off, with assessed value exceeding the debt by £178.2 million.

Rent Cover Above Market Standards

1156.A further measure of safety is rent cover which is the operating earnings of the homes relative to the rent that services the financing.

1157.United Kingdom care-home leases are typically struck at around 1.8 times rent cover.

1158.Across the three portfolios the blended cover is 2.30 times, comfortably ahead of that standard, and every home is trading and paying its rent in full.

1159.The latest quarterly investor reports confirm, across all three portfolios, that all scheduled rent and additional rent has been paid in full and on time, with no covenant breaches, no events of default, and no amounts outstanding under the Government's Payment Deeds.

1160.Occupancy is running at circa 92-94%.

1161.The strength of this financing has also been recognised externally.

1162.The bonds have been rated at a high rate.

1163.Because the rating is private, I am not a liberty to disclose the name of the Rating Agency or the grade, other than to tell the House that it is one we should all be very, very comfortable with.

1164.Separately, an analysis conducted across the whole portfolio illustrates the headroom that protects the Government's position.

1165.Occupancy would have to fall from the current 94% to 53%, and remain at that level over time, before the Government would need to ‘put its hand in its pocket’ and pay the first £1 under the Payment Deed (and noting the substantial package available for Government to obtain reimbursement from even where that may be the case).

1166.That is well below even the COVID-19 low of 79%, the most severe stress the sector has experienced in living memory.

1167.It is precisely to absorb any such shortfall that the cash reserves and rental indemnity insurance are held.

Further Protections for the Government

1168.Beyond the order of loss absorption set out earlier, the Government's support is wrapped in a layered package of legal, security, insurance and governance protections.

Rental indemnity insurance

1169.In one of the portfolios, His Majesty's Government of Gibraltar is the insured under a 15-year Investor Rental Protection Policy from AmTrust Europe Limited, indemnifying the expected rent due under the Payment Deed up to £5.85 million in each 12-month period, index-linked to RPI, behind a first-loss excess that builds from £1.5 million.

1170.This transfers Hartford's rent risk to a rated insurer for 15 years.

Cash reserves

1171.Dedicated reserves totalling £24.2 million are held and invested conservatively in investment-grade bonds, gilts and short-dated funds, providing standing liquidity to meet rent before any call on the Government.

Diversification and cross-collateralisation

1172.Risk is further spread across three portfolios, multiple operators, several regions and different types of care, and the security within each financing is cross-collateralised, so that the income of the wider portfolio, rather than any single home, stands behind the rent.

1173.The cash reserves and insurance therefore diversify the Government's risk rather than concentrating it in any one asset.

Mortgages over the real estate

1174.The financing is also secured by legal mortgages over the freehold and leasehold property of each portfolio, supported by independent valuations.

1175.In addition, four of the properties in one portfolio are held unencumbered, outside the financing security, providing further asset cover to the Government.

1176.The property can be sold to repay the debt.

Share security

1177.The Government benefits from first-ranking charges over the shares of both the property and operating companies, on identical terms, enforceable where Government has made payment to meet a rent shortfall but has not been reimbursed, allowing it to step in and take control of the assets in a default.

1178.It also benefits from call options over the shares of these companies (exercisable at nominal value upon a material breach).

Independent security trustee and step-in rights

1179.Security is held by an independent issuer security trustee, and the asset and healthcare management arrangements include duty-of-care and step-in rights, so the homes continue to operate through any change of manager.

Governance, board and information rights

1180.The Government holds a special share in each operating company carrying veto rights over reserved matters and observer rights, with detailed quarterly investor reporting on occupancy, earnings, cash, covenants and care quality.

Dividend restrictions

1181.Additionally, the joint venture arrangements contain dividend restriction policies that limit distributions to counterparties in circumstances where HMGOG is out of pocket or the cash reserves have not been restored to their required levels.

Representations and warranties on the financing

1182.At financial close the Government and the security trustee received representations and warranties from the issuers and the borrower group covering the financing itself: the due incorporation, capacity and authority of each entity; the valid issue of the notes and the creation and first-ranking priority of the security; good title to the properties; the leases and Payment Deed being valid and in full force; the accuracy of the valuations and financial information; the absence of undisclosed litigation, default or insolvency; and compliance with regulatory (CQC) requirements.

Payment Deed and English-law documentation

1183.Under each Payment Deed the Government's obligation is an independent, primary obligation, and all security and financing documents are governed by English law, with values independently assessed, so the Government's rights are enforceable.

The Returns to Gibraltar

1184.For lending its credit, and without committing capital, the Government earns in two ways.

1185.A dependable annual credit support fee on the one hand.

1186.And, additionally, a retained share in the value of the real estate once the financing has been repaid.

Credit support fee, current income

1187.The Government receives a fee equal to 20% of the principal rent across the portfolios, paid quarterly.

1188.On the contracted rents now in place, of c.£27.85 million per annum this produces approximately £5.6 million in the first year alone.

Rents are index-linked, with floors and caps

1189.The leases carry annual rent reviews linked to inflation.

1190.The fee therefore grows with the rent over the 35-year term.

Residual value, long-term capital

1191.Because the financing fully amortises, the Government also retains a share in the property companies that own the real estate: a 24.9% interest for two portfolios, and a 20% interest in the third.

1192.At the end of the 35-year term the assets are unencumbered and the Government's share crystallises, worth approximately £180 million on today's value and materially more on modest growth.

1193.Madam Speaker, to summarise this in terms to be better understood by the House and the public:

1194.The fund we have created will very likely, estimating very conservatively, produce between 700 and 1,000 million pounds for our people in the next 35 years.

1195.That means that we will likely be able to ENTIRELY fund the repayment of the COVID Debt from the sums that we can accumulate over the relevant period of the loan.

1196.Those estimates are based on rental income and capital growth of between 3.25 and 5% per annum.

1197.We may even see higher rates – which would be normal.

1198.The programme delivers income, security and growth at once, and it does so without drawing on the public purse.

1199.It provides a contracted annual fee that strengthens the public finances; the backing of real assets worth materially more than the debt, with cash reserves, a rated insurer, cross-collateralisation and enforceable security that reduce the likelihood of any call on the Government and even where there may be such a call, provide substantial recourse for its recovery; and a growing share in real estate that becomes unencumbered over time.

1200.The financings are independently administered, with security held by an issuer security trustee and performance reported to noteholders every quarter; the most recent reports confirm all notes performing, all rent paid, and no claims under the Government's support.

1201.Madam Speaker, this is a conservative programme, carefully structured and fully documented.

1202.The Government has lent its credit, not its cash, to acquire real, income-producing assets at a comfortable margin of safety, with the protections of cash reserves, a rated insurer, cross-collateralisation and enforceable security reducing the likelihood of any call and providing for recovery, and the long-term upside of an owner.

1203.It is designed to deliver dependable income now and a growing store of value for the generations who follow, without spending the savings of our people.

1204.I commend it to the House and to our People.

1205.And I say this: I hope that we will do more of these transactions and that they will enhance the sums that we have growing for all of us in a Sovereign Wealth Fund for our collective futures.

1206.Indeed, it was Sir Peter Caruana who said in 2015, in his valedictory statement to this House as backbencher in this debate that the one thing that Joe Bossano had said whilst he was still an Opposition Member of this House before he became Chief Minister began, that always stuck with him was this:

“… there is no political security without economic self-sufficiency. In other words, that this community, challenged and threatened as it is politically, could not without independent economic security safeguard its political security”.

1207. Sir Peter went on to say that he had adopted that mantra because it struck him as absolutely right.

1208.We, on this side of the House, welcome the GSD’s adoption of our principles, Madam Speaker, even if that is only confessed on the brink of departure from this place.

1209.For that reason, we very much hope that we will enjoy the support of Members opposite in growing the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Part XVIII — Investing in our People

1210. Madam Speaker, the figures, the money, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, all these are the means.

1211. The people are the purpose.

1212.To protect them, we will strengthen the General Sinking Fund with a further £3 million.

1213. The Savings Bank — the people's bank — holds reserves of £86 million, up £3.5 million on the year, stronger than it has ever been.

1214. And from the 1st of August, public sector fees and charges will rise in line with inflation, modestly and predictably, as sound administration requires.

1215. And on the safety of our community, the record speaks for itself.

1216. Investment in policing has risen from £10.5 million in 2010/11 to over £19 million this year, and over £20 million in the year ahead — very nearly doubled.

1217. Our police establishment has grown from 259 officers to 301, and rises to 347 in the year ahead.

1218. A safe Gibraltar is a prosperous Gibraltar, and this Government has never once flinched from paying for it.

Part XIX — The Treaty: A New Dawn At The Frontier

1219. And now, Madam Speaker, to the morning that comes after this one.

1220. This Budget is delivered on the cusp of historic changes.

1221. Next week, the Treaty between the United Kingdom, the European Union and Gibraltar enters provisional application.

1222. For three hundred years, the frontier at the foot of this Rock has been a place where the prosperity of Gibraltar could be choked at another's whim.

1223. Next week, we begin to close that chapter — not by surrendering one inch of our British sovereignty, our jurisdiction or our control, but by securing the fluidity at our frontier on which thousands of jobs and a generation of growth depend.

1224.Not one grain of our sand, not one drop of our water, not one breath of our air has been lost.

1225. But there will be those who counsel fear.

1226. There always are.

1227. But this House did not build the fifth-richest economy on earth by flinching at the decisive moment.

1228.Because this Budget.

1229.This growth.

1230.These results.

1231.They are built on the work done to deliver the Gibraltar that Sir Joshua worked to deliver.

1232.Built on the burst of energy of Bob Peliza’s three year Government and his seminal campaign to get us full British Nationality.

1233.Built on Joe Bossano’s game changing respositioning of the economy and, perhaps most importantly, of our collective psyche as a people.

1234.The Bossano years built the modern Gibraltar and laid the foundations for the future of Gibraltar.

1235.Built on Peter Caruana’s perceptive understanding of how Gibraltar’s presentation to the world had to change and how we needed to move from flaking paint to investment in new facilities and new services.

1236.And built on all the help that Fabian Picardo has had in his time in office.

1237.Today’s economic success is the fruit if the collective endeavour of the Government’s of Gibraltar since we started to have them after the Second World War.

1238.It is the fruit of all our labours,

1239.And a fruit we must never take for granted.

1240.Now is the moments when will set out how we will share out those fruits this year.

The Minimum Wage

1241.Madam Speaker, I have already set out that will increase from £9.50 to £10 because under my GSLP Liberal administration it has gone up EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

1242.Because we do not want an economy of many low-paid employees.

1243.We want an economy of many well-paid employees.

1244.This is the best way to ensure that the minimum wage in our economy does not seriously lag behind the lowest wage in Government.

1245.As a result, Madam Speaker, based on the 37.5-hour week, the minimum wage will go up from £18,525 to £19,500, an increase of £975 per annum.

1246.Based on 39 hours a week, the minimum wage will go up from £19,266 to £20,280 per annum.

1247.This is an increase of £1,014 per annum.

1248.And it means, Madam Speaker, that on the 39-hour week, the minimum wage in Gibraltar crosses twenty thousand pounds a year for the first time in our history.

1249.The minimum wage is thus still only 51% of average earnings — which are, for the employment survey for October last year, £39,511 — and the work of closing that gap must and will go on.

1250.But Madam Speaker, as this is the last time that I shall have the honour of announcing an increase in the minimum wage from this despatch box, the House will permit me the perspective of the full fifteen years.

1251.When we took office in December 2011, the minimum wage in Gibraltar stood at £5.40 an hour.

1252.From this year it will be £10 — an increase of £4.60 an hour, or 85%.

1253.For the person working a 39-hour week, that is £390 a week where there was £210.60 — £179.40 a week more in the pay packet;

1254.£20,280 a year where there was £10,951.20 — £9,328.80 a year more.

1255.On the 37.5-hour week, it is £375 a week where there was £202.50, and £19,500 a year where there was £10,530.

1256.And because prices in Gibraltar over those fifteen years have risen by 46%, this is no illusion of inflation, Madam Speaker.

1257.The lowest-paid worker in Gibraltar today enjoys real purchasing power more than a quarter greater than the day we took office.

1258.Every single year of this Government, without exception, the floor beneath Gibraltar's working families has been raised — raised in recession, raised through Brexit, raised through a pandemic, raised through a war-driven inflation shock — because that, Madam Speaker, is what Socialist parties do.

1259.And clearly NOT what chest thumping Social Democrats actually do when they have power.

All Benefits And Tax Allowances Up

1260.All benefits paid by the Government other than unemployment benefits will be increased by the rate of inflation.

Equalisation Of Pensionable Age At 60

1261.The age for entitlement to eligibility to collect the state pension is reduced to 60 for men.

1262.It will remain at 60 for women.

1263.The constraint we have had on the date of introducing harmonization of social security pensions for men and women has been caused by uncertainty on the numbers that would be eligible to benefit from the change

1264.It is a benefit for male contributors because we are committed not to increase the pension age for women as every other country in the EU has done but rather bring the pension age of men down to 60

1265.This will operate us on 1 July and benefit male contributors aged between 60 and 64.11 months.

1266.The cost of introducing this is estimated at £8 million and there will be some 1400 male pensioners benefiting.

1267.This will apply to those employed and residing in Gibraltar, and in Spain, who have contributed to the social security in Gibraltar and have a minimum period of time which under EU law is one full year in another member state.

1268.It will not apply in other EU states except for those nationals that had acquired rights from employment in Gibraltar, which entitled them to benefit benefits prior to the termination of our membership.

Up-Rating of Gibraltar Old Age Pensions

1269.In line with our long-standing policy, I am pleased to inform the House that His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar is once again up-rating Old Age Pensions and Survivors’ Benefits to counteract inflation.

1270.This year's 2.5% increase takes effect on 1st August 2026.

1271.Consequently, a single individual will receive a maximum of £603.00 and a minimum of £156.60, whereas the upper limit for couples scales up to £904.75.

1272.The Old Age Pension, Madam Speaker, has risen under this Government from £398.76 a month in 2011 to £588.30 a month today for a single pensioner — and for a couple, from £598.18 to £882.65 a month.

1273.That is £284.47 more, every single month, in the pocket of every pensioner couple in Gibraltar — over £3,400 more every year.

1274.Not once in fifteen years has the pension been frozen.

1275.Not once has it been allowed to fall behind the cost of living.

1276.But I ask all citizens to remember that we have 13,644 claimants of the Old Age Pension.

1277.Of these the numbers break down as follows:

1278.Resident - 8,461

1279.Non - resident - 5,183

1280.So, over half are not residents.

1281.These numbers will go up by approximately 1,400 once equalisation at 60 is in effect.

1282.These numbers should help the public understand why this benefit cannot increase greatly.

1283.Indeed, many will understand the role that is played by the independent charity, Community Care, set up by independent trustees.

1284.As a result, the Government will be giving more to Community Care this year to enable them to substantially increase the Household Cost Allowance.

The Civil Service Pension

1285.Occupational pensions under the Pensions Act will increase by 2 as provided for in law.

Minimum Income Guarantee

1286.Building on our record of annual pension increases, the Government will fully disregard the new 2.5% pension uplift when assessing eligibility for the Minimum Income Guarantee.

1287.This measure prevents any reduction in supplementary support for our seniors.

1288.It serves as further evidence of our steadfast policy to protect and sustain the financial well-being of Gibraltar's elderly community.

Disability Benefit

1289.I am pleased to announce that Disability Benefit will rise by 2.5% to match inflation. This will increase the maximum upper limit payable to £512.65.

1290.I must remind the House that our landmark 2015 reforms permanently removed the unfair requirement for a person to be born with a disability.

1291.We replaced the old system with a completely restructured, objective assessment process that ensures fairer entitlement.

1292.Today, the Department of Social Security - working closely with medical specialists - continues to refine and improve this framework to better serve our community.

1293.We want to accelerate the speed of decision making.

1294.But let us be clear, we are being VASTLY more generous than the party of Members of Opposite.

1295.Madam Speaker, as a direct result of the reform implemented by this Government in 2015, the number of individuals receiving the Disability Benefit has increased circa 150%.

1296.Updated statistics indicate that at the end of May 2026, a total of 577 persons were in receipt of this benefit.

1297.To support this growth, HMGoG is increasing the budget for this benefit by a further £500,000.

1298.This significant budgetary expansion stands as clear evidence of this Government’s unwavering commitment to a social welfare framework that protects our most vulnerable.

Multi-Year Public Sector Pay Settlement 2026/2027

1299.Madam Speaker, two years ago I told the House of a Union colleague's observation that the climate was "not quite right" to do more than the Golden Rule would permit, and of the need to be prudent even as we tried to give something to those on the lowest salaries.

1300.Last year, I returned to that theme and noted that, happily, the mood music was a little better than the year before.

1301.This year, Madam Speaker, I am not here to talk about mood music at all.

1302.Because what I am about to set out to this Chamber is not another year's adjustment, made cautiously and incrementally as the public finances allow.

1303.It is the product of a sustained, serious, and at times difficult negotiation.

1304.A negotiating conducted jointly and in good faith with Unite the Union, the GGCA, Gibraltar NASUWT, and the Gibraltar Police Federation.

1305.And it represents, in my judgement, a seminal moment in the history of public sector remuneration in this jurisdiction, the effects of which will be felt long after the recovery period itself has closed.

1306.Let me first pay tribute to the process that got us here, Madam Speaker, because it has not been an afternoon's work.

1307.Over recent months, the Minister for Industrial Relations, Leslie Bruzon, who has worked so hard on this matter, the Chief Secretary, Financial Secretary, GDC Secretary, and Chief Statistician, alongside the Industrial Relations team have sat and corresponded, sometimes long into the evening, with representatives of all four unions.

1308.The have examined, line by line, the question of how this Government should respond to the involuntary erosion of real-terms purchasing power experienced by public servants since August 2019.

1309.I want to put on record my gratitude to all those officials and representatives of all four organisations, for the rigour, the patience, and dare I say it, Madam Speaker, the occasional good humour with which that process was conducted.

1310.It will not surprise the Chamber to learn that the unions did not arrive at identical positions.

1311.Indeed, Madam Speaker, it would have been a rather suspicious negotiation if they had.

1312.What unites all submissions, Madam Speaker, and I use that word advisedly, is the following.

1313.All three unions accept the Gibraltar Statistics Office's weighted-average figure of 12.6% as the quantum of real-terms purchasing power loss suffered by public sector employees between August 2019 and 2025.

1314.All three proposals also accept that higher earners should see a reduced rate of recovery, though the union positions varied as to where the line should be drawn and how steeply the taper should fall.

1315.And all three proposed a mechanism to protect public servants against a recurrence of the very erosion we are now moving to repair, whether in the form of a cap on annual awards with deferred recovery, or a floor beneath which no employee's increase can fall.

1316.The Government has now considered each of those positions in full and is in a position to set out, definitively, the settlement it has reached.

1317.But let me first deal with what is agreed, because it is substantial, Madam Speaker, and because it is genuinely without precedent.

The Recovery Principle

1318.This Government has always been an advocate of the principle that public sector employees are entitled to recover the real-terms purchasing power lost between August 2019 and 2025.

1319.We accept the Gibraltar Statistics Office's weighted-average figure.

1320.We do not propose to argue, with those that might have wished us to, that this recovery is some unaffordable extravagance.

1321.We propose, instead, to deliver it — in full, consolidated, and pensionable, across a multi-year framework that will give every public servant in Gibraltar certainty as to what they will receive, and when, for years to come.

1322.That, Madam Speaker, is itself the seminal change.

1323.For too long, public sector pay in this jurisdiction has been negotiated, as it were, from one Estimates to the next — a year-by-year exercise.

1324.What we are proposing today breaks that cycle.

1325.It establishes, for the first time, a structured, multi-year settlement that takes the recovery of lost purchasing power as its central organising principle, and binds this Government — and succeeding Governments — to a framework that endures well beyond the life of this recovery period.

Length Of The Deal

1326.Madam Speaker, this Government has determined that the recovery of lost purchasing power will be delivered over five years, running from financial year 2026/27 to 2030/31.

1327.We have taken this decision deliberately, in the interests of fiscal prudence and of giving public servants the longest possible runway of certainty.

1328.An annual recovery increment of 2.5% will apply across all salary bands up to the relevant threshold in every one of those five years, and the Government commits, today, to honouring that increment in full for the duration of the framework, regardless of the pressures of any given Estimates.

1329.A 5 year horizon allows this Government to deliver the full 12.6% recovery without recourse to borrowing against recurrent revenue, in keeping with the Golden Rule that has guided every decision I have brought to this Chamber.

1330.I would rather give public servants five years of guaranteed, reliable uplift than gamble on a shorter timeframe that this or any future Government might struggle to sustain.

1331.That means that, by the end of this 5 year agreement, every eligible public servant will have recovered in full the 12.6% loss of purchasing power identified by the Gibraltar Statistics Office.

The Further Increases

1332.Madam Speaker, recovering yesterday's losses is one thing.

1333.Preventing tomorrow's is quite another, and it is here, I think, that this settlement does something genuinely new.

1334.So, in addition to the 5 year recovery period I have already announced, the Government will also increase public sector salaries by the rate of inflation in each of the 5 years of recovery, subject to a break clause where inflation exceeds 2.5%.

1335.Where that is the case, the Government will have the option of deferring the amount above the 2.5% for the following 12 to 36 months.

1336.If affordability is the issue, the Government will meet with Unions to determine any other necessary period of deferment.

1337.But all of this will be structured and built in.

1338.Madam Speaker, this is a demonstration of our ongoing commitment to our public service.

IRP Protection Moving Forward

Cap-and-Defer At 2.5%

1339.Madam Speaker, in effect, what we are doing to protect against any recurrence of the erosion we are now repairing, is introducing a potential annual cap on inflation-linked pay awards of 2.5% per annum.

1340.We have set the cap at this level, rather than lower, because inflation in Gibraltar has rarely in practice fallen below 2% in recent years, in fact, since the year spanning April 2020 to April 2021 — and a cap set too conservatively would generate deferred balances in almost every single year of this framework, an administrative and psychological burden on employer and employee alike that serves nobody.

1341.A 2.5% cap has the further, practical advantage of being similar to the inflation figure recorded for the year ending April 2026, meaning that not a single percentage point will be deferred in Year One of this agreement — public servants will feel the full benefit of this settlement from the very first August payslip.

1342.As with any cap-and-defer mechanism, where inflation exceeds 2.5% in a given year, the excess is deferred, not lost, and recovered in years where inflation runs lower, with any balance remaining at the end of the framework continuing to be recovered, at the final year's rate, until it is extinguished in full.

1343.This is a mechanism designed not merely to exist on paper, Madam Speaker, but to function, year after year, exactly as intended.

1344.Madam Speaker, I want the House to understand the significance of what has just been announced.

1345.For the first time, the public sector pay rise settlement does not simply ask "what is owed for the past."

1346.It asks "how do we stop this happening again."

1347.That is the quite seminal aspect of this new approach.

1348.We are not just closing a historical account.

1349.We are justly building an architecture that will govern the relationship between inflation and public sector pay for years, possibly decades, to come.

1350.That gives us all certainty to plan.

1351.Government.

1352.Unions.

1353.Public sector employees.

1354.Together, with this approach we can better understand where we will be in years to come on an earnings basis.

Threshold For High Earners

The £100,000 Threshold

1355.Madam Speaker, full recovery under this settlement will apply to every public servant earning up to £100,000 — broadly, above the Senior Officer grade and below.

1356.Above that figure, a reduced rate of recovery will apply.

1357.The Government has settled on £100,000, rather than a higher figure, because we believe the line between general public service pay and senior remuneration is properly drawn at above Senior Officer level, and because every pound saved by drawing the threshold here is a pound that strengthens recovery for those earning less.

1358.This is, Madam Speaker, a settlement that asks more of those better able to give it, and gives more, in consequence, to everybody else.

Taper Structure Above

— A Flat 50% —

1359.Madam Speaker, above the threshold of £100,000 I have just announced, recovery will be delivered at a flat rate of 50% of the identified loss for every public servant, regardless of how far above the threshold their salary sits.

1360.This Government has chosen simplicity deliberately.

1361.A flat rate is a rate every public servant can calculate for themselves, that every payroll officer can apply without ambiguity, and that cannot be accused of hidden complexity or of favouring one band of senior staff over another.

1362.Fairness, Madam Speaker, is not always served by complexity.

1363.Sometimes it is best served by a single, transparent rule applied equally to all who fall within it.

The Broader Settlement

1364.Madam Speaker, the recovery period runs from August 2019 to 2025.

1365.The Gibraltar Statistics Office's weighted-average figure of approximately 12.6% is the quantum on which this entire settlement rests.

1366.Recovery will be consolidated and pensionable — not a one-off payment of the kind we were obliged to make in 23/24.

1367.But a permanent uplift to base pay, carrying through into pension entitlement for every year a public servant remains in service.

1368.This Government has also received detailed representations from the unions that the Superannuation Pension Fund cap requires attention as part of this comprehensive settlement.

1369.The Government is prepared to consider a review the current cap on the Superannuation Pension Fund with the unions.

1370.I am setting up a working group with the Minister for Business and the Minister for Economic Development and the four Unions to consider with them what changes might be made to the caps on that pension fund.

1371.That Working Group will also consider which allowances should be pensionable.

The Minimum Public Sector Salary

1372.Madam Speaker, I committed, two years ago, that this Government would never lose sight of those on the lowest salaries, even — perhaps especially — in years when the public finances were tighter even than now.

1373.I am pleased to say that commitment is reflected squarely in this settlement.

1374.Furthermore, Madam Speaker, this Government has further agreed to raise the minimum entry salary across the Public Service to £24,413 per annum.

1375.It will rise in keeping with rises in the UK automatically now each year on the 1st of April to ensure we are in step with UK.

1376.In doing so, we have consciously prioritised those public servants who are most vulnerable to the effects of inflation and the rising cost of living.

1377.Those on lower incomes have the least capacity to absorb economic shocks, and it is therefore right that they should benefit from enhanced protection.

1378.This measure reflects our belief that a fair settlement is not simply one that rewards service, but one that provides meaningful support where it is needed most.

Annual Leave

1379.Madam Speaker, this Government will also bring forward an increase to the annual leave allocation for public sector workers, set at an additional 2 days of annual leave extra after 15 years of service as part of this settlement's broader improvement to terms and conditions and to work-life balance across the service.

1380.Madam Speaker, before I end this part of my address, I want to dwell for a moment on the process itself, because I think it tells us something important.

1381.This is not a settlement that was handed down.

1382.It is not a number plucked from the air in a Ministerial office and presented to the unions as a fait accompli.

1383.It is the product of genuine, detailed, and at times robust negotiation with Unite, the GGCA, Gibraltar NASUWT, and the GPF.

1384.These are four organisations with overlapping but distinct memberships, distinct priorities, and distinct views on how a shared problem should be solved.

1385.The Government has listened to each of those institutional judgements, weighed them with the rigour they deserved, and arrived at the settlement I have set out today — definitive, in full, and ready to be delivered.

1386.Madam Speaker, what is before the House is not an incremental adjustment of the kind I and others have announced in years past.

1387.It is a five year, structurally novel settlement, negotiated jointly with Unite, the GGCA, Gibraltar NASUWT, and the GPF, that for the first time addresses both the recovery of historic losses and the prevention of their recurrence within a single, coherent framework.

1388.I believe — and I say this with confidence, not bravado — that the terms I have set out today will shape the relationship between this Government and its public servants for long after the last instalment of the 12.6% recovery has been paid.

1389.That is what I mean when I say this is a seminal moment, Madam Speaker.

1390.Not seminal in the sense that we will speak of it fondly in years to come — although I rather think we will — but seminal in the sense that the architecture we put in place this year will still be governing public sector pay long after the recovery itself is a matter of historical record.

1391.Because the structure of continued inflation based rises being agreed, capped at 2.5% and caught up within 12 to 36 months is one that would work for ALL sides.

1392.Madam Speaker, I am also equally delighted to announce that the unions have agreed in principle to a moratorium on sectoral claims, save where there has been a material change to terms and conditions of employment or to job descriptions.

1393.This is a significant achievement.

1394.It provides the public service with a period of stability and certainty not seen for many years.

1395.It allows Government, managers and employees alike to focus on delivering public services rather than engaging in continual negotiations and disputes.

1396.More importantly, it demonstrates what can be achieved when a Socialist, Liberal Government and the Unions work together in a spirit of mutual respect and partnership.

1397.We have not agreed on every issue, nor would anyone expect us to.

1398.But through constructive dialogue, we have reached a long-term settlement that delivers for employees, protects the taxpayer and provides a stable foundation for the future of the public service.

1399.That, Madam Speaker, is industrial relations at their best.

1400.Finally, Madam Speaker, as this will be my last Budget Address, I wanted to ensure that this settlement looks beyond the immediate challenge of recovering lost purchasing power and provides genuine long-term certainty for the public servants of Gibraltar.

1401.Today, I am not merely announcing a 5 year agreement. I am setting out a framework that extends for a decade.

1402.Having committed to the full recovery of the 12.6% loss of purchasing power between 2026/27 and 2031/32, this Government will go further, a further four years to have a deal that is future proof for TEN years.

1403.Therefore, from 2032/33 through to 2036/37, public servants will continue to benefit from annual pay awards linked to inflation, plus an additional 1%.

1404.In doing so, we are providing certainty not just for the next Budget cycle, not just for the next Parliament, but for the next decade of public service employment.

1405.At the same time, we will continue to exercise the fiscal discipline that has underpinned Gibraltar's public finances for almost sixteen years.

1406.Accordingly, these annual awards will be capped at 4%, striking the right balance between protecting public servants from the effects of inflation and safeguarding the long-term sustainability of the public finances.

1407.Madam Speaker, when taken together, this agreement delivers ten years of certainty, ten years of protection, and ten years of partnership between Government and public servants.

1408.It is a commitment unprecedented in its duration, unprecedented in its scope, and one which reflects this Government's unwavering belief that those who dedicate their careers to public service deserve stability, fairness and the confidence to plan for the future.

1409.That is the legacy of this agreement.

1410.Not merely the recovery of what was lost, but the protection of what has been regained for many years to come.

1411.I commend this settlement to the House in its entirety.

1412.As ever, Madam Speaker, I expect the Opposition will say they support a fair and overdue recovery for public servants — but that they will vote against it.

1413.They will say the would deliver it faster if I was not Judicially Reviewing the Inquiry findings.

1414.Nonsense.

1415.Obviously.

1416.But say it they will.

1417.But public servants will see that this is a genuinely good deal.

1418.Better than has ever been put to them and good for the tax payer too.

1419.And every public servant is also a tax payer, Madam Speaker.

1420.Certaintity.

1421.Clarity.

1422.Commitment.

1423.That is what this Socialist Liberal Government is providing.

1424.And that is worth defending in the face of camouflaged austerity that is lingering in the wings, like a bad smell one cannot get rid of.

1425.Furthermore, when we pass these Estimates with the Government majority, as the Opposition will vote against this pay rise and all aspects of these investments in our Community and public servants, we will start the process of filling the vacancies accepted as part of the 2026/2027 complement.

1426.That will mean 57 new public servants will be recruited to the post of AA in the Civil Service.

1427.Madam Speaker, when I was elected in 2011 I promised the Civil and Public Service ‘Respect, Support and Commitment.’

1428.I genuinely believe I have delivered on my personal commitment to them.

1429.The full stop to my time in office is designed to end my time as the Minister with Responsibility for the Public Sector with a demonstration of that respect, support and commitment and entrenching that going forward.

The Royal Gibraltar Police

1430.Madam Speaker, I turn now from the public service as a whole to one part of it that asks something distinct of the men and women who serve within it —the Royal Gibraltar Police.

1431.I record my gratitude to the Chairman of the Gibraltar Police Federation, Mr Calum Bruce, and to the Federation's representatives, who put their members' case to the Chief Secretary and to my Industrial Relations team with conviction, with evidence, and with the seriousness that the matters deserved.

1432.The Chief Secretary will be contacting the Federation directly to address and settle their concerns on a number of areas.

A Housing Bursary For The Royal Gibraltar Police

1433.Madam Speaker, I do want to address here what I regard as the most significant of the measures that relate to the Royal Gibraltar Police today.

1434.Last year, this Government announced a Housing Bursary for the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, a measure that gave a young Gibraltarian choosing a career in the Regiment the same financial helping hand toward a home that we have long given to those who choose the path of university study.

1435.It was one of the measures of which I am most proud in this Government's time in office, because it spoke to something simple: that service to Gibraltar, in uniform, should open the same doors as any other path in life, and ought perhaps to open a few more.

1436.Today, Madam Speaker, this Government extends that same Housing Bursary to the Royal Gibraltar Police.

1437.Let me explain to the House how it will work, extrapolated from the Regiment's scheme to the circumstances of the Police.

1438.The bursary will be set at £30,000, the approximate cost of a university degree over three years, and it will be applied as a deposit upon the successful completion of the purchase of a residential property by the officer, whether on the private market or through one of our affordable housing schemes.

1439.It will be available to new entrants to the Royal Gibraltar Police who have not previously taken the education bursary, which this initiative is designed to substitute, and who have not previously purchased an affordable home.

1440.As with the Regiment, the bursary will be released from the third year of service and will carry a commitment to a total period of eight service to the Royal Gibraltar Police.

1441.It will not be applied retrospectively.

1442.It is an instrument to recruit and to retain the officers of the future, and it is to them that it is directed.

1443.The eligibility conditions will mirror those of the Regiment's scheme: an applicant must hold a valid Gibraltar red identity card, be registered with the Civil Status and Registration Office, and meet the residence requirements, with the finer points of eligibility confirmed in the usual way.

1444.Madam Speaker, the logic that justified this measure for the Regiment justifies it no less for the Police.

1445.A police force is only as strong as its ability to attract and to keep good people.

1446.By linking this support to a career in the Royal Gibraltar Police, and to a commitment to serve, we tie the helping hand we extend directly to the service the officer gives in return, and we give a young Gibraltarian weighing a career in policing a reason, a real and a material reason, to choose it, and having chosen it, to stay.

1447.Madam Speaker, our commitment to the Royal Gibraltar Police does not end with pay and conditions.

1448.We remain committed to ensuring that the Force has the people, the resources and the equipment it needs to continue protecting our community.

1449.Recruitment to approved vacancies will continue as part of our wider commitment to strengthen the public service, and we will continue investing in training, technology and operational capability so that the Royal Gibraltar Police and all essential services remains equipped to meet the challenges of modern policing.

1450.Gibraltar continues to be one of the safest communities anywhere in Europe.

1451.That is not an accident.

1452.It is the result of the professionalism, commitment and courage of our police officers, supported by a Government that recognises the importance of investing in public safety.

1453.As ever, Madam Speaker, I expect the Opposition will tell the officers of the Royal Gibraltar Police that they support them, but at the end of this debate they will then vote against every measure that is designed to help them.

1454.Now we must also consider the work, not just of our law enforcement agents, but also of our law drafters.

The F & Eu Excise Duties

1455.Madam Speaker, the Gibraltar Government Law Offices have done considerable work on the legislation required to bring the Treaty into effect in our laws.

1456.A large number of regulations have been published.

1457.Others are being published in coming days.

1458.Today, here, during this debate, I am going to sign the Notice of Commencement which will kick off the application of all these new rules with effect from Midnight on the 15th July.

1459.The date when we commence the provisional application of the treaty.

1460.We expect that the treaty will be signed on the 14th.

1461.And we will be ready.

1462.From the first second of the 15th July, Gibraltar’s laws will be in place.

1463.And by signing the Notice, we shall ensure that is the case.

1464.Madam Speaker, this Notice also brings into the new rules on the Transaction Tax and the European Excise Duties from the 15th July.

1465.Madam Speaker, the measures I have already announced to assist businesses as this new ‘Transaction Tax Era’ begins will also start to have effect as from the 15th July.

1466.The Minister for Business will making further announcements in her own Budget Address about further measures designed to amortise the introduction of the new system of indirect taxation on our highly valued retail and hospitality business.

1467.She has spent days in meetings with the GFSB and the Chamber and other interested parties to ensure that the application of the Treaty will complement and not damage our affected business sectors.

1468.I commend the Hon Ms Arias Vasquez for her careful diligence in this exercise in the past five months, when we then expected to start provisional application on 10th April.

Vehicles

1469.Madam Speaker the Transaction Tax payable in respect of vehicles shall be the standard rate, starting this year at 15%, not the higher rates which have been payable to date.

1470.There will be no difference between the nature of the individual or entity making the importation.

1471.EU rules on importation of vehicles to a Member State or from one to another will apply, as well as other rules governing vehicles fleets etc.

1472.Additionally, the dates for compulsory electrification will change as they have throughout the EU and the United Kingdom to 2045.

1473.Without the EU and UK requiring earlier electrification it will not be possible for Gibraltar to mandate it, although we will continue to encourage it.

1474.I should also say that it is recognised that the industry is already working to reduce internal combustion engine tailpipe emissions by 90% from 2021 levels in any case.

1475.Nonetheless, Madam Speaker, nothing can undo the excellent work that has been done in the past decade and a half on emissions by John Cortes.

Tobacco

1476.Speaking of smoke, Madam Speaker, on tobacco products, and cigarettes in particular, we are moving to a new differential of 80 cents of a Euro per packet or 8 Euros per carton.

1477.As I mentioned in my speech last year, there will be an excise duty of the equivalent of at least EUR 115 per 1,000 cigarettes.

1478.We will continue issuing a Gazette setting the minimum retail price for cigarettes.

1479.Each band of tobacco will be no more than 15%, or circa 80 cents of a Euro, cheaper in Gibraltar than in Spain.

1480.The Gazette will obviously be expressed in pounds sterling, the legal tender of Gibraltar to achieve the differential agreed.

1481.This is in accordance with Appendix 2 to Annex 24 of the Treaty.

1482.The quarterly Gazette divides cigarettes into four categories:

·              Premium cigarettes;

·              Mid-High cigarettes;

·              Mid-ordinary cigarettes; and

·              Ordinary cigarettes.

1483.This is exactly as has been the case until now, but with an additional layer.

1484.Minimum prices are set for each category in accordance with the practice established pre-Treaty Memorandum of Understanding.

1485.We have considered how the Gazette mechanism will interact with the Excise and Transaction Tax.

1486.With the introduction of Excise Duty and Transaction Tax at 15%, the plan is to change how duty is levied on cigarettes.

1487.This will better achieve the Treaty objectives.

1488.It will also maximise revenue for Government.

1489.Import Duty is presently set at £121 per 1,000 cigarettes.

1490.As from midnight on 14 July 2026, Excise on cigarettes will vary by category as follows:

·                   Premium cigarettes £150 per 1000 cigarettes

·       Mid-High cigarettes £137 per 1000 cigarettes

·       Mid-ordinary cigarettes £130 per 1000 cigarettes

·       Ordinary cigarettes £132 per 1000 cigarettes

1491.Transaction Tax at 15% will be levied on Cost, Insurance, Freight and Excise for each category.

1492.These levels of Excise and Transaction Tax ensure prices meet the Treaty objectives.

1493.The quarterly Gazette will adjust prices if Spanish prices change or exchange rates fluctuate in the intervening period.

1494.This will ensure retail establishments cannot sell at prices which would infringe our obligations under the Treaty.

Tobacco Laws

1495.Our tobacco laws will also change to ensure that we are now regulating the sale and purchase of tobacco in a manner consistent with all other democracies.

1496.As any semblance of an illicit market is expunged from the reality on the ground, so too a law that is far more stringent than is now required must also be modified.

1497.The Tobacco Act will therefore see some of its most draconian elements amended.

Tobacco Minimum Age & Banned Substances

1498.Additionally in relation to tobacco, Madam Speaker, we are taking other measures.

1499.Nicotine pouches and SNUS will be banned in Gibraltar.

1500.What is SNUS you may ask?

1501.Snus is a tobacco product that has originated in Sweden.

1502.Like Nicotine pouches, it is consumed by placing a pouch of powdered tobacco leaves under the lip for nicotine to be absorbed orally

1503.Additionally we shall present legislation, akin to that in the United Kingdom to ban the sale of tobacco or tobacco related products to locally resident individuals born after 2009.

1504.In many respects, our young people are much more sensible than we were when we were young.

1505.But that has not stopped the predatory nature of tobacco companies morphing their products, chameleon like, to make themselves attractive to younger generations.

1506.Just like the adverts of the old days were designed to make The Marlboro Man and Picadilly attractive role models – today, colourful social media advertising is designed to do the same.

1507.We will stand in their way to protect our children and young adults.

Social Media

1508.We will also act in relation to social media.

1509.The Government, via the Ministry of Culture and Equality, will commence a consultation on the appropriate age for young people to be permitted to access social media.

1510.We will watch carefully the development of this area of policy in the United Kingdom and the European Union.

1511.The reality is that, on our own, we would find it difficult to get the social media giants to react, but with others, we will have the critical mass to make a difference.

Scholarships

1512.And we will continue to ensure we provide for our young people who go away to university what they need to concentrate on their studies.

1513.The Maintenance Grant will be increased by the rate of inflation since the last increase, namely 5.4%.

1514.And all this in the context of the plethora of other measures that make Gibraltar undoubtedly one of the safest and most advantageous places in the world to be a young person.

Tweaking

1515.Madam Speaker, we are embarking, next week, on the greatest change in the operation of our economy in 55 years.

1516.We have made all the necessary changes.

1517.As we start operations, there will be a need to tweak here and there.

1518.Let us be clear.

1519.Where tweaks are necessary, in the short term, we will effect them.

1520.They are not evidence of error.

1521.They are evidence of careful calibration and, where necessary, re-calibration.

1522.All to ensure a better environment for our businesses and our people.

Support for Musicians in Gibraltar

1523.Madam Speaker, this Government has always believed that a modern economy cannot be built on finance, commerce and infrastructure alone.

1524.It must also invest in culture, creativity and the people who give life to our community.

1525.And that is why today I am pleased to announce a new measure aimed at supporting musicians resident in Gibraltar who perform locally.

1526.Madam Speaker, music is woven into the fabric of Gibraltar life.

1527.It is there in our national celebrations, our cultural events, our bars and restaurants, our festivals and our public spaces.

1528.It supports our hospitality sector.

1529.It strengthens our tourism offering.

1530.And it enriches the everyday lives of our people.

1531.But behind every performance is work.

1532.Hours of rehearsal.

1533.Investment of any monies they make in equipment.

1534.Travel.

1535.Preparation.

1536.Commitment.

1537.And for too long, many musicians have contributed enormously to our community without meaningful recognition through the tax system.

1538.That is why, following constructive engagement with the Musicians Association of Gibraltar, this Government will introduce a tax allowance for all fees received for live performances in Gibraltar for musicians resident in Gibraltar who perform locally and who reinvest their earnings from performances into equipment and instruments.

1539.This measure is designed not only to support existing musicians, but also to encourage future generations of Gibraltarians to pursue music and live performance as a valued and respected profession.

1540.Because culture matters.

1541.Local talent matters.

1542.And the ability for venues and establishments to continue providing quality local entertainment matters too.

1543.Madam Speaker, this is a practical measure, a fair measure, and a measure that reflects the kind of Gibraltar we are building.

1544.A Gibraltar that recognises contribution.

1545.A Gibraltar that supports creativity.

1546.And a Gibraltar that backs its own people.

1547.And, Madam, Speaker, I am also pleased to confirm that this measure will apply retrospectively from July 2019, recognising the contribution made by musicians to Gibraltar’s cultural and social life over recent years.

1548.This Government is proud to support them today, and proud to invest in the future of music in Gibraltar.

Airport Renaming

1549.Finally, I am conscious that the coming weeks will bring big changes.

1550.Having negotiated them all, I am more aware than most.

1551.I am as alert as everyone to them.

1552.The changes will include the lifting of the Spanish veto on flights to Gibraltar from other European airports.

1553.This is long overdue.

1554.I remind the House that the Cordoba arrangements did not provide for this.

1555.They only permitted flights from Spain.

1556.There was political agreement for Spain to potentially ‘agree to’ flights from other EU / Schengen destinations in the future.

1557.That future never came.

1558.The Treaty will immediately allow for flights from the rest of the EU and Schengen destinations.

1559.Our airport might finally benefit from the traffic that it could become attractive too as the southernmost airport on the Iberian peninsular.

1560.Madam Speaker what a propitious time to name it after the seminal post-war leader of the Gibraltarians.

1561.The Father of the Gibraltarians.

1562.Joshua Hassan.

1563.I look forward to renaming the Airport, Joshua Hassan International Airport.

Part XX — Four Leaders, Fifteen Years

1564. Madam Speaker, I have presented a Budget to this House every year for a decade and a half.

1565. And across this floor I have faced four Leaders of the Opposition — Sir Peter Caruana, the Honourable Daniel Feetham, the Honourable Elliott Phillips, and the Honourable Keith Azopardi — and one Honourable Member whose devotion to the subject of our debt has been the one fixed star of his political life, Mr Clinton, who has opposed me at every Budget since he first entered this House in 2016.

1566. I thank them — every one of them — for the service of opposition.

1567. A democracy is the poorer without it.

1568. But I say this also, and without rancour.

1569. Every single year, for fifteen years, they told the people of Gibraltar that the sky was about to fall.

1570. And every single year, the sky held, and the sun rose, and Gibraltar was richer, freer and stronger than the year before.

1571. The people listened to the prophecies of doom — and then they looked at their wage packet, and their pension, and their hospital, and the home with the key in the door, and they returned this Government to office four times.

1572. The people are not fools.

1573. They can tell a mirage from their daily reality.

1574.And that is why the people have supported us through this marathon.

1575.And now, as we are coming into the stadium, we will not let them down in the work that we will do today.

Part XXI — An Advertised Departure

1576. And it is not lost on me that I am the first Chief Minister in our history to speak in this debate knowing and saying it will be his last.

1577. None of my predecessors has ever advertised his departure as I have.

1578. I am particularly proud of one statistical fact.

1579. I will retire as Gibraltar’s only unbeaten leader.

1580. Even the great Sir Joshua was once beaten by the great Sir Bob.

1581. As I go, in this debate in particular, I want to record some things in particular as we take the financial and social snap shot of Gibraltar in this debate.

1582. I will hand to my successor an economy nearly three times the size of the one I was given.

1583. As was I.

1584. A record number of our people in work.

1585. As was I.

1586. The highest wages in our history.

1587. As was I.

1588. Every Chief Minister has handed over Gibraltar with those important increases to his successors.

1589. May that continue to be the case for many, many years.

1590. But there are some things which are particular to the hand over I will be doing.

1591. A minimum wage lifted by more than eighty-five per cent — very nearly doubled — so that the lowest-paid worker on this Rock is protected as never before.

1592. More Gibraltarians than ever studying at university on the most generous scholarship a people ever offered its children.

1593. More cash in reserve, and less debt within it, than in 2011.

1594. A hat-trick of surpluses – which would have been 15 consecutive years if it had not been for a world wide pandemic.

1595. Eight hundred and forty sets of company accounts published in the daylight.

1596. Removal, after thirty-five years, from the Spanish blacklist.

1597. The third highest GDP per head on the face of the earth.

1598. And a Treaty that secures the fluidity we want at the frontier for the children now sitting in our schools and their children too.

1599. When I first stood in this House, I promised a new dawn.

1600. Not everyone believed me.

1601. The figures in this Budget are also a demonstration of that dawn, fully risen.

1602. As are the IVF babies now in our schools – some of them already entering Comprehensive education in schools that are the envy of Europe if not the world.

1603. Through distant European wars, through a world wide pandemic, through every pressure a small nation can be made to bear, this Government has delivered.

1604.And behind everything we have delivered there has been one clear principle.

1605.Social Justice.

1606.For the work we have done has been designed to democratise our community more.

1607.To permit greater meritocracy.

1608.And to give back more and more to our people.

1609.Sometimes, I wonder whether that is understood.

1610.Because this government is often told by those who fail to understand reality that we build for the rich.

1611.We have built nothing for the rich in 15 years.

1612.Most of what is built by the rich on private land is built on land the GSD sold private developers.

1613.What we have done is actually control what can be built by reducing heights of projects agreed before us.

1614.What we have done in 15 years of GSLP Liberal Government is build better homes for our people than ever before.

1615.I suppose, what we could be accused of is building to the standard of the rich to sell to the working class.

1616.That is what our affordable schemes have become, Madam Speaker.

1617.Because we have built affordable homes of a standard which defies the best buildings on the open market.

1618.In fact, I dare say our standards in all our affordable housing projects are nothing short of remarkable.

1619.The unstoppable Pat Orfila would have it no other way!

1620.We have built homes for the working classes that will make them rich.

1621.That is true.

1622.But we have never built for the rich.

1623.And in doing so we have amortised costs of infrastructure so that taxpayers generally do not have to carry the burden of it.

1624.More such projects will come now, in particular at the reclamation in front of Harbour Views.

1625.Madam Speaker new plans will be issued shortly to show that we will be able to build over 2,000 affordable units.

1626.We will do so without displacing the bathing pavilion we created.

1627.We will do so creating a better park for our children in that area.

1628.Potentially providing for a new school also.

1629.All that, Madam Speaker, because Gibraltar continues to grow because more Gibraltarians are being born.

1630.And that is the best result of all that I report to the House today.

1631.We build more homes.

1632.Our people establish family units.

1633.More Gibraltarians are born.

1634.We need more schools.

1635.We need more homes.

1636.More fool he or she who thinks that we can stand still, spend less and still grow.

1637.More fool he or she who thinks that we can stop because someone’s views may be impaired from an estate that, when build, impaired the views of others.

1638.And housing our people, educating our people and delivering economic growth to our people is a key part of the delivery of the Government’s obligations to its people.

1639.Of that, we must be clear.

1640.So let it be clear to those who clamour for a home only to clamour ‘not in my back yard’ that the Government is looking forward to the Gibraltar we need to provide for in the next decade and a half.

1641.That we are development a property lung to house those of our people who need it now and will need it in the near future also.

1642.I know Members Opposite will now come out against it.

1643.There will be no surprises there.

1644.Because, whatever we do, they are against.

1645. Like they have been on our international progress and the steps we have taken to reach the final stages of the treaty between the UK and the EU.

1646.For every one of these achievements there has been a prophet of doom — and it has always been the same prophet.

1647.The Withdrawal Agreement, the Leader of the Opposition told this House, gave Spain "a voice in our domestic affairs and a measure of control over these."

1648.The New Year's Eve Framework — the very foundation of the Treaty we bring into application this month — was, he warned, a ceding of control to Spain.

1649.The Tax Treaty was "a bad deal," "the hallmark of the Trojan horse," an "instrument of surrender" that would "cost jobs" — and he committed himself, in his own manifesto, to asking the United Kingdom to terminate it.

1650.Now the same alarm is sounded over our residence rules.

1651.Five times, Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has cried wolf.

1652.Five times this House has been told that Spain was about to seize control of our affairs.

1653.And five times the wolf never came.

1654.No Spanish voice in our domestic affairs ever materialised; what materialised instead was your Chief Minister received for the first time in history for a formal bilateral meeting at the Palacio de Viana, the very seat of Spanish diplomacy.

1655.The jobs that were to be lost and the economic growth that was going to be stilted because of the Tax Treaty became the most jobs in our history and the highest GDP which they said was too ambitious.

1656.And the Tax Treaty he pledged to tear up is the instrument — the only instrument — that this very week removed Gibraltar, after thirty-five years, from the Spanish blacklist.

1657.Every single one of these warnings has been tested against the only authority that cannot be cross-examined — the authority of events — and every single one has failed.

1658.The House might weigh against that record, Madam Speaker, the warnings he will shortly repeat about the Treaty itself — a Treaty for which, I note, he and his party ultimately voted.

1659.I shall, no doubt, have more to say about that record when I reply.

1660.On all of the route, from Cordoba to Viana, he has been on the wrong side of the road.

1661.Why am I not surprised, Madam Speaker.

1662.But I expect that, in reply, we will hear it all again.

1663.We will hear that if the Hon Leader of the Opposition had been Chief Minister, everything would be better.

1664.Even his own party does not believe that.

1665.That is why they did not vote for him when he stood with the PDP.

1666.Joe Bossano was in the wilderness of Opposition for 16 years and the Hon Mr Azopardi used to say he should resign.

1667.He has been in the wilderness since 2007.

1668.That is 19 years, Madam Speaker.

1669.But I implore him NOT to resign.

1670.He is a hugely important part of how we win elections!

1671.So I very much look forward to hearing from him this afternoon.

Concluding Remarks

1672.   Madam, in now finally rounding up for the last time in presenting this Bill, I have to, of course, start by thanking all my Cabinet colleagues in the past 15 years.

1673.   I will thank them at greater length when the time comes to depart No6, but I want to record on Hansard the huge support that they have all been.

1674.   Most importantly, the very collegiate way in which we have been able to conduct the affairs of Government.

1675.   Exactly as we set out to do when we were first elected.

1676.   In all that time, I think I remember only having to take one vote in the Council of Ministers, and I cannot even remember on what.

1677.   On one occasion we voted in order to record our unanimous vote specifically.

1678.   But on every other occasion, we have resolved all the business of Gibraltar by consensus.

1679.   That is a tall order, Madam Speaker.

1680.   Sooner said than done!

1681. And more generally, in relation to No6 and its people, Madam Speaker, I have saved the hardest words to deliver for the end.

1682.On the 9th of December 2011, I walked through the door of No.6 Convent Place for the first time as Chief Minister — excited, as I once confessed to this House, but with trepidation, feeling almost as if I were walking into someone else's domain.

1683.It stopped feeling like someone else's domain within the hour — and that was not the building's doing, Madam Speaker.

1684.It was the people inside it.

1685.For very nearly fifteen years already, through four Parliaments, one referendum that changed everything, a pandemic that stopped the world and a Treaty that will change everything again, the men and women of No.6 have been the constant voices.

1686.Some were there on that first day and are with me still.

1687.Some — Giselle, whose voice was the very first ever to address me as "Chief Minister" in that office; Jimmy, who drove every Chief Minister of modern Gibraltar and put up with this one; Carlos, Derek and the two Marks, who did not just protect my life but became part of it — have gone on to retirements.

1688.Denis, David, Stuart who have been with me since then.

1689.Helping me every step of the way in the toughest professional and personal moments.

1690.And occasionally, with the odd kilo of tuna.

1691.And to those who hold the corridor today, and to every single person who has served at No.6 since 2011 I say this:

1692.I told the House in 2015 that when the chips are down and Gibraltar is under attack, you make me feel surrounded by the most effective team on the planet, and that at the craziest moments, you keep me sane.

1693.Eleven years, one Brexit, one pandemic and one Treaty later, the House may judge for itself just how heavy the debt of my sanity – such as it may be - I owe.

1694.Thank you.

1695.I have been called the lead singer of the Gibraltar, Madam Speaker, but I have never made a single note of music on my own.

1696.My Cabinet colleagues, successive Chief Secretaries and Financial Secretaries, the people at No6, these are the people who gave up their evenings, their weekends, their Easter’s and part of their Christmases to work alongside me.

1697.Hours stolen from their own families so that we could stand there together and serve our people.

1698.They have seen me at my strongest.

1699.They have seen me at my weakest.

1700. At my happiest.

1701.And at my saddest.

1702.Yet they have never, in fifteen years, been anything less than magnificent in each of the four seasons and in fair or foul weather.

1703.The Hansard of 2023 records that when I last tried to say this, my voice failed me and I had to count myself back — three, two, one; hon. Members will forgive me if history repeats itself now.

1704.Because they are not just my team, Madam Speaker.

1705.They are also my family.

1706.And that is why I cannot say their names.

1707.Because I will not be able to get through them all.

1708.That is what they mean to me.

1709.Denise.

1710.Peter.

1711.Susan.

1712.Amy.

1713.Debbie.

1714.George.

1715.Clive.

1716.Javi.

1717.All of you.

1718.And when I walk out of that door for the last time and hand its key to my successor, I will do so knowing that the truest privilege of these years was never the title on the letterhead — it was to have gone to work every morning, in the service of Gibraltar, among people I am not ashamed to say I love.

1719.The building will not miss me, Madam Speaker; buildings don't.

1720.And I will not miss it.

1721.But I will miss them — every single day, for the rest of my life.

1722.Thank you.

1723.For everything.

1724.Forever.

1725.FINALLY, Madam Speaker, what my family have endured, they do not yet understand.

1726.Thank you to all of them.

1727.To my children, Sebastian, Oliver and Valentina and my gorgeous and caring fiance Anna and little Olivia.

1728.I am asked by them to confirm about now that I have 6/7 minutes left…

1729.Thank you.

1730.One day, my beloved children, you will understand everything.

1731.In particular, you will understand what the privilege of being Chief Minister gave us all and what it took from us all.

1732.And to my other family.

1733.My dear friends.

1734.Who are there rain or shine.

1735.Not because of the office I hold but because of the bonds the unite us

1736.Thank you

1737.Expect to see a lot more of me in months to come.

1738.And so Madam Speaker, after all of that emotion, there is a cold, hard job to be done here.

1739.To either approve or reject a Budget to spend near three quarters of a million on providing public services to our Community.

1740.To vote for or against continuing to grow our nation.

1741.To vote to increase the complement of Police Officers and to pay the salaries of nurses doctors and teachers.

1742.Or to vote against.

1743.To approve the creation of a sovereign wealth fund that will produce between three quarters of a billion or a full billion pounds for us all.

1744.Or to vote against it.

1745.And whether or not to fund the works required to keep us safe as we take start our new relationship with Schengen area.

1746.I am clear that this is a Bill that delivers a Budget for social justice.

1747.And I will vote for it to give a pay rise to public sector workers that will ensure they catch up with the inflationary losses they have suffered.

1748.I will vote for it to equalise the pensionable age between men and women at the age of 60, contrary to everything that is happening elsewhere in Europe.

1749.I will vote for this Bill to continue to build a nation that stands prouder today than it ever has before.

1750.Madam Speaker, this Bill represents a decade and a half of progress.

1751.A decade and a half of prosperity.

1752.A decade and a half of real social justice.

1753.This Bill deserves unanimous support of the whole House.

1754.And if it does not get it, those who fail to support it will find it difficult to explain why they will not vote in favour of these worthy objectives.

1755.And therefore, for all of those reasons, for the last time in presenting an Appropriation Bill to this House, Madam Speaker…

I COMMEND THE BILL TO THE HOUSE.

And in doing so, given the time, I propose that the House should now recess until XXXXXX to hear the contribution of the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition.

[1] 148.62%

[2] Sterling figures are converted to US dollars at £1 = US$1.48, the twenty-year average sterling-to-dollar exchange rate, consistent with the basis used in previous Budget addresses. World rankings are drawn from the IMF World Economic Outlook (April 2026) in nominal terms. Micro-jurisdictions not ranked in the IMF country tables, notably Monaco, Liechtenstein and Bermuda, are referred to separately. These comparisons are necessarily inexact, given differing national methodologies and exchange-rate fluctuations.

[3] Inflation in the same period was 46%.