Thank you, Llywydd, and thank you to the Cabinet Secretary for opening this debate. Like him, I don’t want to reiterate what was said during the debate on the draft budget. I will also be focusing my comments on the changes since the draft budget, and also on some of the Government’s responses to the Finance Committee’s recommendations.

It is a shame, although the Cabinet Secretary responded appropriately to the recommendations, that the timetable that we set ourselves as an Assembly for this means that Assembly Members haven’t had an opportunity, in any meaningful way, to look at the Government’s response to the recommendations. Most of the recommendations, published overnight, relate to long-term budgeting, but there are some specifics that the Government has responded to in preparing its final budget.

So, I will be concentrating on some of the changes made, not necessarily because of the Finance Committee, although the Finance Committee is interested in these issues, but also other Assembly committees that brought evidence to the Government based on the draft budget, asking for further resources or shifts in resources, or, of course, further outcomes as a result of the autumn statement.

I think it’s important to underline that the Finance Committee looked in particular at sustainability in terms of health financing, and therefore I am pleased that the Cabinet Secretary has accepted our recommendations in relation to health funding and I am also pleased to see that additional capital of over £40 million has been allocated over four years to improve the health estate and accelerate innovation within that sector. That actually dovetails with the Finance Committee’s interest in preventative services and the balance between the increase in NHS funding and the funding available for social services. I am pleased, therefore, to see the final allocation of £10 million additional revenue funding for social services, which reflects the discussion in the Finance Committee, as well as discussions within subject committees.

I also note that some capital funding has been returned to the budget of the Cabinet Secretary for energy, climate change and rural affairs: £10 million additional capital for the energy-saving schemes that have just been mentioned by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government; an additional £3 million in funds for flood alleviation measures, which were originally cut and which caused great concern to the climate change committee as well as the Finance Committee; and an additional £5 million of capital support that has just been mentioned as well for rural communities.

So, there have been significant changes that have been facilitated by the autumn statement between the draft budget and the final budget, but the Cabinet Secretary has said that he did keep some reserves in hand in case the autumn statement would be detrimental to the Assembly and to the Government. As it hadn’t been detrimental to such an extent, then some of these funds could be released for Government aims, which correlate with a number of things that the Finance Committee was very interested in.

The Finance Committee would have liked to have seen more assurance on local government revenue for the future, because the Cabinet Secretary, wearing his other hat, is to prepare a White Paper on local government reform, and the Finance Committee will follow the issue of local government funding with some interest during this ensuing period, including the possibility of moving away from annual funding to more long-term funding on a three yearly basis, similar to the pattern that should happen with health boards—some such pattern. That would certainly be of interest to the Finance Committee.

We also heard evidence during our debates in the Finance Committee on the possible impact on the workforce in the NHS and the social care sector of the UK’s exit from the EU. We recommended that the Welsh Government work closely with local government and the NHS to mitigate any potential repercussions. I’m pleased that the Cabinet Secretary has accepted this recommendation and is committed, therefore, to exploring all options to facilitate the retention of the NHS workforce that we have, a workforce that is very reliant on migrants from the rest of the EU as well as the rest of the world, of course.

I would also make reference to the fact that the Government has accepted the committee’s recommendations on the way the well-being of future generations Act impacts upon the way in which the Government prepares its budget. I would have liked to have seen more evidence of this in the draft budget and the final budget, in terms of how that Act has steered Government decisions. The Cabinet Secretary did give us an example in the area of children’s services of the way that that particular Act had been of assistance in making Government decisions, and I very much hope that when we look at the next budget, there will be more evidence of this Act being implemented. Certainly, stakeholders were very eager to see that.

In closing my comments on this budget, it’s fair to mention that the Finance Committee will scrutinise enthusiastically the changes that will ensue over the next year or two. We will turn to those in the next few days in the Assembly, with the further devolution of fiscal policy, the framework agreed between the Government here and the Government in Westminster, and the possibility that we as an Assembly do move to a far more parliamentary system of budget scrutiny through a full finance Bill, which could be amended, and, in light of that, of course, could impact on taxation rates. That, in my view will certainly add to democracy here in Wales.