I welcome this budget and the opportunity to contribute to my first final budget debate as Assembly Member for Delyn. I particularly welcome a number of the recent revenue and capital allocations, including an extra £10 million a year for social care. I think it’s right that we address the pressures on social care—the growing pressures as people are growing older and living longer—and recognise the role of the often much undervalued workforce who take care of our nearest and dearest. Also, the additional £32 million over four years for flood alleviation measures. Communities in my constituency, like many other areas across the country, have been devastated by flooding in the not-too-distant past, and I hope that, with this extra investment, we’ll see steps taken in the areas that need it. And finally, the £84 million more over four years to support road and transport schemes. Transport networks are crucial to regeneration—the regeneration that drives investment and sustains better jobs closer to home. So, it’s important to me and to others that this is a budget that addresses and meets the needs of the whole of Wales.

A further £15 million to relieve transport pinch points across the country will be music to many commuters’ ears. As somebody who regularly travels from north to south, I appreciate the opportunity this funding provides to tackle junctions that are causing congestion and to look at improving overtaking on key routes from north to south. The same also needs to happen east to west in north Wales. The extra money is needed and will be well received to help ease congestion and the well-documented difficulties on the A55 and other trunk roads in north Wales, such as the A5, the A483 and the A494. The £50 million put forward to develop the metro in north Wales will innovatively complement the investment in our roads and will be significant in the economic development of the region and unlocking our links to prosperity across north Wales with our near neighbours in the north-west of England. So, going forward, I think we really need to make sure that this investment sees practical steps taken to get north-east Wales metro ready with a better integrated public transport system, and also press ahead now without delay with much-needed and much-wanted improvements to the A55 gateway to north Wales.