Well, as a Member who is still comparatively new to this place, I hope I’ll be forgiven if I haven’t fully understood the conventions of the budget debate, although I think I’ve grasped the pattern over recent years. I haven’t myself been here to witness at first hand the cut, cut, cut to the Welsh Government’s budget over each successive year; I haven’t seen at first hand the tightening of the grip by the UK Government on the budgetary windpipe of this Assembly. And we arrive at a situation where, by the end of this decade, we’ll have not more, but £1.5 billion less for vital public services. This will lead to an 8 per cent reduction in real terms in the Welsh budget since 2010. Do we have 8 per cent fewer patients in the NHS, 8 per cent fewer students in the classroom, 8 per cent fewer young people wanting an apprenticeship, 8 per cent fewer people in need of social housing or social care? No, we don’t. Against a declining budget, we’re not even standing still. The very opposite is true. Demand is going up. Social need is going up. Social need is going up precisely because of the austerity agenda at the root of this. The reality is that the UK Government is cutting the budget, and the Welsh Government is carrying the cost.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has described Wales as facing 11 years—an extraordinary 11 years—or more of cuts in public service spending. Extraordinary. Well, there are people in this Chamber who have other words for that. We talk, don’t we, of hard choices and difficult decisions? And the Government does that here in Wales. And whilst I understand that, we all know that the real difficult decisions are being taken day by day by those people actually bearing the brunt of this austerity agenda—making the difficult choice between eating or heating, making thousands of difficult choices that people should not have to make in a country like ours.

And now we face a further £59 billion taken out of the economy—a sum equivalent to four times what the Welsh Government spends each year. If you’re wondering about the cost of Brexit, now you have a number. And, believe me, much of that cost is going to be borne by communities here in Wales. So, we’re told by the Conservatives that we must tighten our belts, told that we need to do more with less. So, let’s turn to the Conservative amendment.

‘Delete all, and replace with’, oh, there’s nothing there. No alternative, no ideas, nothing; just a hole where a competing vision should be. So, I commend the Welsh Government on this budget. More money for health and care, more money for education, the best local government settlement in years, money for childcare, money for apprenticeships. Making good on our commitments. Would I have liked to have seen more for some areas and less for others? Of course I would. I dare say all of us can say that. We all have our own set of priorities. But, is it a budget that, despite the continuing efforts of the Conservatives, reflects our Welsh Labour commitment to social justice, and to raise and meet the aspirations of our communities? Yes, it is.