The Welsh Government won the first vote on its £26bn spending plans for next year in the absence of two Conservative Senedd members.

The Senedd, which had been expected to reject the motion, voted 29-26 in favour of the 2025-26 draft budget, with one abstention, following a two-hour debate on 4 February.

Darren Millar and Russell George, trustees of the Evan Roberts Institute, a Christian charity, missed the vote after jetting off for a prayer meeting in Washington DC.

Labour, which holds half of the Senedd’s 60 seats, refused to agree to a pairing arrangement which would have seen some of its members not vote to cover the absences.

The Conservatives similarly refused to “pair” when two Labour members were off sick for a no-confidence vote on former first minister Vaughan Gething in June.

But Tuesday’s vote was largely inconsequential unlike the crunch vote looming on 4 March.

With parliamentary arithmetic on a knife-edge, ministers still need to cut a deal with at least one opposition member to pass the final budget which will be published on 25 February.

If not agreed, the Welsh Government’s budget would initially revert to 75 per cent of the previous year’s and if a motion is not passed by the end of July, this would rise to 95 per cent.

Welsh rates of income tax, set to raise £3.4bn in 2025/26, will also need to be agreed before the budget motion on 4 March or rates would fall by 10p in the £1 for all Welsh taxpayers.

Finance secretary Mark Drakeford said the draft budget provides an extra £1.5bn, with every Welsh Government department receiving an increase in capital and revenue funding.

He told the Senedd: “In sharp contrast to this time last year, I have been able to provide an uplift to every part of the public service here in Wales.”

Peredur Owen Griffiths, who chairs the Senedd’s finance committee, raised a groundswell of evidence about the impact of the UK Government’s employer national insurance hike.

He also called for a “funding floor” to close the gap between the councils that fared best and worst in the Welsh Government’s 2025/26 provisional local government settlement.

With the leader of the opposition in the US for a national prayer meeting expected to be addressed by President Donald Trump, Sam Rowlands led the Conservatives’ response.

The shadow finance secretary said a quarter of a century of Labour budgets in Wales have led to the longest NHS waiting lists and the worst educational outcomes in the UK.

Heledd Fychan, Plaid Cymru’s shadow finance secretary, said: “He [Mr Rowlands] can speak on behalf of his party but he certainly can’t vote on behalf of the two missing members.”

She added: “The fact that two members are missing from their benches today tells you all you need to know about what they actually think of Wales.”

In recent years, Welsh Government budgets have passed with Plaid Cymru’s support as part of a since-collapsed cooperation deal.