We now turn to spokespeople’s questions, and I call on party spokespeople to question the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. First up today is Gareth Bennett.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Could you put your hat as local government Minister on for a second? Hopefully, that’s not my first question. [Laughter.] Cardiff council has managed to raise £4.5 million in the past two years in bus lane fines. Do you think this may be an excessive amount, which could indicate that motorists in the city are being targeted by the council as cash cows? Can the Welsh Government intervene in any way to stop councils from taking overly punitive action against drivers?

Dirprwy Lywydd, bus lanes are a very important part of the way in which we are able to encourage people to use public transport rather than car transport—that is the policy of this administration. Provided Cardiff council operate within the law, which I’m sure they do, then their actions are not to be criticised. The real solution to the problem the Member raises is in the hands of car drivers: if they keep to the rules of the road, they will not be at risk of being fined.

Yes, thank you, Minister. As a non-driver, I do appreciate your regard for public transport, which I share. In an ideal world, your answer would be correct, but, unfortunately, given Cardiff’s traffic problems, sometimes drivers do inadvertently find themselves in bus lanes. To continue with the theme, Cardiff probably does have the worst traffic problems in Wales, and the council has also raised £3.5 million in parking fines since 2014 as well as £110,000 in yellow-box fines. This last is, perhaps, the most pernicious charge, as drivers caught up in the city’s endless traffic jams simply cannot gauge when they are going to end up in a yellow box. I really think that Cardiff and any other council engaging in this kind of money making should be forcibly dissuaded from doing so. Can you, as a Minister, issue any guidelines on this?

I thank the Member for what he said about his support for public transport measures. I agree with him that if people find themselves in positions inadvertently, then the law should take a more generous view of any transgressions. I will investigate the final point that he makes about yellow-box infringements in particular to see whether there is wider evidence to bear out the points that he’s made this afternoon.

Thank you for that, Minister. I’ll move on to something else, as you dealt with that one so capably. It’s to do with the Localism Act 2011, which they have in England and which we haven’t adopted in Wales yet. The Campaign for Real Ale have pushed for this as a means of protecting the local pub, which I think is an admirable campaign. Whether or not the Localism Act is the best way of achieving the protection of local pubs I’m not sure, but I know that CAMRA have been in talks with the Welsh Government, so I wondered whether you could give us any update on those talks.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I’ve not been involved directly in those talks myself. I recognise the point that the Member makes about the contribution that a thriving pub can make to a community—a social contribution as well as anything else. I’ll make sure that his points are drawn to the attention of my colleague Carl Sargeant, who I think is responsible for that matter.

Thank you very much. I call on Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson, Adam Price.

I think I’m going to change the aperture a little bit from bus lanes in Cardiff to the world economic outlook. [Laughter.] I was wondering whether the Cabinet Secretary shares a growing global consensus, I think, amongst Governments right across the world that now is the time for infrastructure spending like never before. It may be the only policy lever that we have. One of the few positive by-products of the long recession that we’ve had since the economic crisis is ultra-low or, indeed, negative interest rates.

That historic window may not be there forever, as we’ve begun to see in America already mortgage rates rising as a result of speculation over the infrastructure investment that may result as a result of the Trump presidency. Do we need to grasp this opportunity now with a greater sense of urgency, Cabinet Secretary?

I entirely agree with the point the Member makes. As I said, I didn’t get to hear the whole of the Chancellor’s statement, but I did get to see the anaemic growth forecasts that the Office for Budget Responsibility produced for the next five years—I should think very alarming growth forecasts for anybody in charge of the UK economy. The OBR is not forecasting that the UK economy will return to trend growth at any point during the next five years. This doesn’t simply mean that we continue to face the impact of the lost economic activity that we have seen as a result of austerity, but that we’re not even going to return—not even going to return—to where the UK economy has managed to perform for nearly 60 years, from 1945 onwards. That should mean that the Chancellor should grasp this urgent need to invest in the UK economy to generate economic growth. Inflation forecasts surely give us cause for concern about interest rates, which will follow. Now is the time, when interest rates are at a historic low, as Adam Price has said, to take that opportunity and to invest for the future.

One of the policy levers that many Governments are beginning to focus on is the idea of an infrastructure bank, as I raised yesterday with the First Minister. We’ve had one announced this month in Canada by the Prime Minister there. There was the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank last year, and discussion from the former Labour Prime Minister in Australia about doing the same. I agree with him that £400 million over five years is certainly not going to enable us to do anything meaningful in terms of the underinvestment in infrastructure in Wales over many decades. So, surely we should also be exploring this policy lever that many Governments across the world have come to believe is the channel by which we can create the sort of public-private investment mechanism that we need in order to catch up in terms of our infrastructure investment.

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, this Government will aim to make the very most of any additional capital that comes our way as a result of the autumn statement. But £400 million over a five-year period is not going to meet the needs of Wales. It does not even begin to restore the one-third reduction in our capital programme that we have experienced since the year 2010. That is why, as a Government, we have embarked on a series of innovative ways of providing investment in the Welsh economy. My colleague, Jane Hutt, did it by using the borrowing powers of local government and of housing associations. We have further innovative financial arrangements in train to produce the new Velindre and to complete the dualling of the Heads of the Valleys road. The idea that Adam Price has put forward this afternoon was discussed with the First Minister yesterday and I know that my colleague Ken Skates will have heard that discussion and will be interested to take it further forward.

Can I urge him to go a little bit further? We saw, actually, a national infrastructure bank announced by his colleague, the shadow chancellor, in a speech on 27 September. It was repeated three days later by the leader of the Labour Party—it’s good to see some policy alignment happening there. Surely, rather than just expressing constantly our disappointment with Westminster, the point about creating this institution and the Welsh Government is that we don’t just emote, we don’t just deal with emotional spasms of regret, we actually do something. This lever has been announced as a policy by his own party at the UK level—and a network of regional banks. Well, there’s a Government that his party runs in the UK: it’s the Welsh Government. Surely, rather than just issuing statements of regret and press releases about what a future hypothetical Labour Government could do in Westminster, surely we should actually take control of our own destiny and create an infrastructure bank for Wales.

It’s because we have done exactly that that, in Wales, we’ve had the innovative finance arrangements that I’ve already explored. It’s why we have Finance Wales here providing a source of funding to businesses in Wales that otherwise certainly would not have been available to them. That’s why, indeed, we are interested to explore other ideas within our competence and our legislative ability to build even further on that record.

Cabinet Secretary, the recent Health Foundation report, ‘The path to sustainability: Funding projections for the NHS in Wales to 2019/20 and 2030/31’, highlights the need for an increase of around 60 per cent in funding to £10.4 billion by 2030-31 in order to meet the forthcoming predicted demand. They also identify the need for greater efficiency, and we know that smarter ways of working, particularly in the integration of health and social care, are a must. Based on your forthcoming local government reforms, which, of course, are to include a footprint of seven regional consortia, to include health and social care, what plans are you putting in place now to ensure that greater efficiencies could be made through a fully integrated health and social care model?

Well, I share the Member’s belief that closer integration between health and social care brings benefits both to patients and to users, and can help to drive financial efficiencies. It’s why, in next year’s budget, we maintain the £60 million care fund to drive greater integration between health and social care. It’s why we will have pooled budgets operating on the regional social services footprints, and it is why, in the discussions that I am having with local authorities in Wales, the notion of bringing social services together on a regional basis, facing health boards, helps us to make progress, and rapid progress, in that direction.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The future generations commissioner has warned that public services could fall off a cliff without more being done to prevent people from becoming ill. This includes, obviously, quality housing and leisure services. Further, the Welsh Local Government Association has expressed concerns that NHS budgetary pressures could see non-healthcare services that help people stay healthy losing out. How will you ensure a streamlined approach through local government to promote public health, not just through the NHS, but through all public services provided at local government level, and how will you ensure that, throughout any reform process, this will be a key priority?

Any person with the responsibility of making a budget for the Welsh Government has to face the competing priorities that are there for expenditure. In the budget that I have laid before this Assembly, we seek to do that, with £240 million additional investment in our health service direct, but also, as a result of our budget agreement, are able to provide a no-cash-cuts budget for local authorities as well, with £25 million identified specifically for social services within that. The general point that the Member makes is one that I endorse: the future for the health service depends upon each one of us being willing to take more responsibility for creating the conditions in which we take better care of our own health. So, much of what the health service deals with today are problems that need never have happened had people made different decisions in their own lives. It’s the responsibility of Government to create the conditions in which those decisions can be made, and our local government budgets are key to helping to do that.

Thank you. And, finally, turning to community councils, as part of your local government reform, how do you intend to proceed with a fundamental review of the democratic level of governance that sits at town and community level?

I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for that question. I know she’s got a particular interest in town and community councils. I said in my statement on 4 October that there were a series of immediate things I feel we can do to improve the operation of the system as we have it today, but I also wanted a more root-and-branch and independent look at town and community councils to find the ways in which we can harness the things that they do very well. In many parts of Wales, that sector does some very important things very well, but it doesn’t do it uniformly. There is a democratic deficit in the sector, with over half of town and community council seats uncontested at the last election. I’m grateful to her for the discussions we’ve had on this matter and I look forward to being able to continue with them to design that root-and-branch re-assessment.

Thank you. We now turn back to the questions on the order paper and question 3—Hefin David.