I thoroughly enjoyed the high-level debate that took place between Nick Ramsay and Adam Price at the beginning. I would say that, as an undergraduate, I was taught by Patrick Minford and I remember the time he drew on the board a number of mathematical equations and he said, ‘This, my friends, is a Rolls-Royce theory of the money supply and it’s all you really need to know about macroeconomics’. Well, I didn’t understand it then and I don’t agree with it now.

I’ve seen as a councillor the direct effects that cuts have. What’s happened in my experience is, you get a cross-party seminar, you sit down, you look at the budget and you’ve got to decide where those cuts are going to fall. It’s one of the hardest things you can do. After 10 years as a councillor—it’s my last year this year—I would say it’s not why we went into politics. The recent UK autumn statement showed that there’s not much coming Wales’s way that way either.

So, my ambition for a Welsh budget is one that brings prosperity and jobs and growth to Wales and for my constituents in Caerphilly, but that means difficult choices. It means what we learnt as opportunity costs, which was more of a microeconomic concept, and something that we have to deal with. It gives a great many opportunities for party political division, and I suspect we’ll see more of that, but some of those choices have to be unpalatable. We need to decide what is in the box of choices that we’re going to make.

So, I’m pleased to see that the draft budget sets out plans for £6.9 billion of capital funding from the Welsh Government’s capital settlement, making full use of capital borrowing powers. Of great importance to my constituents is the shared £1.2 billion city deal for the Cardiff capital region that was agreed in principle between the UK Government, the Welsh Government and the 10 local authorities—and they’re working so well together to try and bring that to fruition. But the key issue in the city deal will be the benefit to the northern Valleys, areas that have huge potential. A city deal that doesn’t bring prosperity beyond the Caerphilly basin is no deal at all. This is why the £734 million of the deal allocated to the south Wales metro is of such significance and it should be noted that the proportion allocated from European funding should go ahead and not be threatened despite Brexit. Brexit does offer us a big threat.

We need, as a result of our budget, a reliable system of cross-valley public transport, making connections between communities with limited contact, enabling people to access work in a range of locations other than Cardiff. I’m therefore pleased that the Welsh Government has allocated the majority of the capital funding available to it in setting out a four-year capital plan to provide confidence and assurance to the construction sector, businesses and investors, because when we’ve cut in the past in local government, we’ve seen the private sector suffer. This budget commits £369 million towards the metro, which I assume will at least partly cover the cost of electrifying the Valleys lines. I’d like the Cabinet Secretary therefore to clarify if he knows whether the UK Government is still committed to its £125 million funding pledge for Valleys lines electrification to ensure that this goes ahead. When his colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, came before the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee last month, he said the metro was built on flexible foundations and would be an ongoing piece of work similar to what happened in Manchester. Therefore, I would also ask whether this will provide flexibility in the budget allocation so we can meet new requirements as an when they come up. I’d like, for example, to see a metro stop at the proposed new specialist critical care centre in Cwmbran, and Nick Ramsay has already raised his preference for stops elsewhere. I’d like to see the budget being flexible enough to contain that.

It’s good to see the Welsh Government is keeping to its part of the Cardiff city deal and is determined to see this ambitious project through uncertain economic times. I’d say myself that, in my last year in local government as a councillor, I will find it slightly easier this time than we have in the past. It’s vital now that we work together to see this through so that we can no longer rely on European Union money in the longer term.