I’ve already said that I welcome a treatment fund; I just think it’s a shame that we are playing catch-up from a number of years ago, when our constituents—and not just mine; I’m sure constituents in your area, Rhun, in Ynys Môn were also calling for a cancer treatment fund. It is one of the biggest killers in Wales and I just think it’s a shame that we didn’t take that action at that time, but I’m willing to accept that we do now have a treatment fund. I just think we could’ve got out of the blocks a little bit earlier, and I think, probably, in your heart of hearts, you agree with that as well, Rhun.

We need more information on where health funding is going. Getting data from the NHS has always been tricky to say the least. Is the additional funding really going to go on improving the health service and building for the future, rather than simply plugging and writing off holes in the budget? As I said earlier, Cabinet Secretary, we’re playing catch-up here and we shouldn’t forget that.

Turning to education, earlier this afternoon, we had a statement on the poor PISA results. Okay, I appreciate that these results are very recently published, but I think it is reasonable to ask how this budget will address the concerns raised in that statement. Going in the right direction is not good enough. There can be no clearer sign of how serious this Assembly takes its obligations to future generations than what we do to raise educational standards in this country, and to reach the standards required. As paragraph 4.35 of the draft budget proposals reminds us,

‘Education plays a fundamental role in our development as individuals and is the foundation of a strong and vibrant economy.’

If I can turn to and, indeed, warmly welcome the abandonment of the flawed plans to reform local government in Wales, we in the Welsh Conservatives believe this will avoid wasting a huge sum of money—money that can be invested where it should be: on the front line, in public services, where people would expect it to be invested. I do, of course, have an issue with sharing out of the local government budget itself. I’ve made those concerns well known in this Chamber during many statements and debates. The old formula is still being relied on. As we know, it penalises rural local authorities, like mine in Monmouthshire—consistently at the bottom of the pile of funding. There is one small section in the draft budget on rural issues. I think it’s on page 55, relating to food and drink and supply chains. Good as far as it goes: it may proclaim an increase in funding to local government, but that is just half the battle. It needs to be distributed fairly, recognising the greater costs of delivering services across a sparsely populated rural area.

Cabinet Secretary, sustainability is at the heart of the Assembly’s constitution, but there is a perception out there that we often talk the talk without always walking the walk. If the Welsh Government is going to require other organisations to demonstrate three-year financial planning, then it has to make more of an effort to do this itself as part of a modernisation of the Welsh Government budget process. We talked earlier about the need to modernise the Assembly’s budget process. The Welsh Government needs to do that as well.

In conclusion, Presiding Officer, we need more joined-up thinking. How does this budget deliver on Welsh Government objectives over the medium term? How does it prepare us for the changes and the challenges ahead? How does it deliver our goal of long-term sustainability?

Whilst good in parts, and providing much-needed but ultimately—as the Cabinet Secretary himself alluded to—short-term relief for some of our public services, this is a temporary fix. To paraphrase the words of the late Sir Robin Day, it’s a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ budget. This is why we do not feel that this budget meets the needs of the people of Wales.