I have some very simple and bad news for him: yes, we have huge debt in the public sector, but has he looked at the state of corporate debt in the private sector? The entire economy of the western world is indebted. So, what is he suggesting? That we all cut all economic activity, and that we go back to ground zero? Re-read Keynes by all means. We are back in the same situation where collapsing trust and economic confidence has left us in the position where there is only one lever left, and it is the lever held by people like us who are elected to represent the public. Unless governments act across the western world, then we are all condemned to a future, politically and economically, that no-one—not one of us, I presume—would want to see.

Let’s turn to the budget. I have sympathy with the Cabinet Secretary, because he has to deal within the constraints that are set upon him in this situation where we do not have fiscal and economic sovereignty to the extent that this party would like to see. So, that is the backdrop, unfortunately, to our discussions here, and as we gather and gain political and fiscal autonomy then we will be able to do more in the future.

It was a pleasure to work with him in this curious form of political cohabitation that we’ve invented between our two parties, as a governing party and an opposition party, to do what is right in the interests of the people of Wales. We have our disagreements, and we certainly continue to discuss those areas of disagreement. But it was good to be able to agree support, particularly for sectors, in this year where, as he has said, it’s about creating, possibly, a breathing space in order for us to put in place a platform for some of the more radical change that will be necessary over the years ahead. We’re looking particularly in the Plaid Cymru agreement at those sectors that have had serial cuts over many years: higher education; further education, which is underfunded; the arts sector; local government, with the first cash rise since 2013-14; and mental health spending, where I know there is consensus across the Assembly that it is a sector that has been underfunded compared to its importance over many years. So, it was good to put those in place through the agreement between us.

In pooling our ideas, I think we were able to create a better budget. I want to see the whole of this Assembly, actually, being able to do that role more effectively than it has hitherto, and that’s why I welcome the recommendations from the Finance Committee. We collated, with the Government’s help, all the different items—the main expenditure groups, the spending programme areas, the actions, the budget, the BELs, the budget expenditure lines—yes, about 7,000 of them, or something like that. It should have been a red file—it’s a blue file. It could be a red book, maybe. But you won’t find this available anywhere at the moment. This should be given to every Assembly Member, of opposition parties and governing parties, so you can look through each of these individual budget expenditure lines. Otherwise, we’re not able to do our job to the best of our ability.

I’m particularly looking forward, as the Cabinet Secretary has said—and, indeed, the Chair of the Finance Committee—we live in a time of great challenge, with rising demand, huge fiscal constraints, and opportunities in terms of new technology like big data, for example. We need to look at creating a longer-term budgetary framework for the public sector bodies that rely on the budget. So, a three-year budget I think is something worth welcoming. But certainly, we need to have the information available in a more transparent form than is currently the case, and we should look at broader innovations about the way we set the budget.

They say that journalism is the first draft of history. There’s a paucity of journalism in Wales. Maybe the Welsh budget, actually, is the first draft, because of the central importance of the Welsh Government in shaping our future as a nation. Fifty years ago in the United States, they innovated in budget making through programme budgeting, and actually it relates to the first recommendation of the Finance Committee. Alongside the figures on expenditure, we should have figures on what we’re trying to achieve, on outcomes. They put the two together. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, did some things I wouldn’t agree with, but he did some good things as well, and actually had a bit of a Damascene conversion at the end. But one of the excellent things he did was say, ‘The only way Congress can judge a budget is actually having the data on inputs and outputs set out at the same time’. There’s a reference, I think, in one of the committee’s reports, to the pupil deprivation grant—absolutely laudable in terms of its objectives, but is it achieving those objectives and how do we actually evaluate value for money? Again, maybe there’s a different way that we can look at budget making in total. We talk about moving away from silo Government, don’t we? We’ve talked about a joined-up Government et cetera for a decade and more. Yet, this a monument to silo thinking, isn’t it? It’s all done on a departmental basis.

Would it be possible to do a cross-departmental budget where we actually have main expenditure groups that are about innovation, which look at creating an innovation fund that moves across all the departments? Could we look at other areas like prevention, which is also mentioned in the Finance Committee’s report? We all know this, don’t we, that actually investing in early years intervention for children and young people saves us money in the long term, certainly in the health service, as referred to in the Finance Committee’s report? Why don’t we have prevention as one of our main expenditure groups, rather than the departmental focus that we have?

I welcome the fact that, through our discussions, we’re looking at a participatory budget, involving the citizens, user engagement, co-production—a word that I think Leighton Andrews tried to ban. But ultimately, if we’re going to achieve more with the taxpayers’ pound, we can only do that with actually drawing other people, citizens, companies and sectors in to co-delivering some of our objectives as well.

So, I would urge that we take a different look at the way that we currently go about budget setting and we involve not just other Members in this place but the citizens as well. We would like to see in the final budget, particularly as referred to in one of the committee’s reports, and as Simon Thomas has already raised, the issue of capital funding for flooding and certainly business rates. We’ve made the case many, many times, I think, for additional relief, particularly as a result of the revaluation. On housing, could we look, as the UK Government is doing, at modular housing as a means of accelerating housing development? Finally, on local transport—seeing on social media people right across Wales complaining about the overcrowding on our trains and also the problems in some parts of Wales with local bus services as well—could we make that a priority as we move from this draft budget to the final budget statement?