Can I thank Lynne Neagle for her opening remarks? All the key commitments of this Government are reflected in this budget. That’s why it is an ambitious budget, because it sets us on the road to delivering all those key things that we put before people in Wales earlier this year. I agree with her entirely that the only sensible course of action, from the point of view of the citizen, is to regard our health and social care services as a continuum in which they get a service in the round, dealing with all the different aspects that they require, and that’s why we have gone on making sure that we invest in our social care services, at the same time as providing our health services with the investment that they need.

As a result, as well as Supporting People being protected in this budget, we will continue next year to provide the full £60 million that was invested this year in the intermediate care fund—£50 million in revenue and another £10 million in capital. And in the local authority budget, which I have set out today, there is £25 million earmarked in that budget for social services purposes, as there was £21 million earmarked for the same purposes in this year, in order to make it clear to our partners in local authorities the extent to which we are determined to go on supporting those vital services in our communities.

I can say to Members that in every one of the 22 visits that I made to local authorities, every local authority was able to explain to me why the funding formula for local government in Wales uniquely penalised their particular needs and circumstances. When those individuals get together in the finance group, they recognise that our funding formula brings together a whole range of needs, recognising rurality and sparsity, but quite certainly, recognising at its heart, the relative need between our communities. And I look forward to the opportunity to discuss with Members the way in which those considerations feed through to the statement that I will put before the National Assembly tomorrow afternoon.