Item 4 on today’s agenda is a debate on the second supplementary budget, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government to move the motion. Mark Drakeford.

Motion NDM6236 Jane Hutt

To propose that the Assembly, in accordance with Standing Order 20.30, approves the Second Supplementary Budget for the financial year 2016-17 laid in the Table Office and emailed to Assembly Members on Tuesday, 7 February 2017.

Motion moved.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. The second supplementary budget is a standard part of the regular financial procedure. It gives us a final chance to adapt our budgetary proposals for this financial year, which were approved by this Assembly in the first supplementary budget last July. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Finance Committee for its scrutiny work on this second supplementary budget. I will be responding to the Chair in due time on the specific recommendations made in that report.

The Presiding Officer took the Chair.

This budget is, foremost, an opportunity to put in place the changes that are required as a part of mid-year financial management. It aligns the resources available with the Government’s priorities, and most of the changes to proposals are administrative. This year, the second supplementary budget also includes a number of key allocations from reserves. The provision of stability for our public services is one of the main priorities of this Government. Therefore, this budget includes worth £168.9 million of allocations of revenue from the reserves of the Welsh Government to support national health services in Wales.

Mae’r swm hwn yn cynnwys y £50 miliwn a gyhoeddwyd gan Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet dros Iechyd, Llesiant a Chwaraeon ym mis Tachwedd i fynd i'r afael â phwysau'r gaeaf a chynnal a gwella perfformiad dros gyfnod y gaeaf. Mae hefyd yn cynnwys pecyn cyllido ychwanegol o £102.9 miliwn i gefnogi'r GIG yng Nghymru. Bydd hyn yn helpu i fynd i'r afael â'r diffygion a ragwelir mewn dau fwrdd iechyd lleol a’r diffyg incwm a amcangyfrifir o'r cynllun rheoleiddio prisiau fferyllol.

Lywydd, mae’r gyllideb atodol hon hefyd yn adlewyrchu'r dyraniadau a wnaed i sicrhau cynnydd cynnar yn erbyn ein rhaglen 'Symud Cymru Ymlaen'. Ym mis Tachwedd 2016, cyhoeddwyd cyllid cyfalaf ychwanegol o £30 miliwn gan Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet dros Gymunedau a Phlant i gefnogi ein hymrwymiad i ddarparu 20,000 o gartrefi newydd fforddiadwy ledled Cymru. Bydd hyn yn cynnwys cefnogaeth barhaus ar gyfer adeiladu drwy gynlluniau megis y grant tai cymdeithasol a Chymorth i Brynu. Ym mis Ionawr eleni, cyhoeddodd Llywodraeth Cymru gyllid o £16 miliwn i gefnogi lansiad y gronfa triniaethau newydd i alluogi pobl yng Nghymru i gael gafael ar driniaethau newydd ac arloesol yn gyflym. Mae £20 miliwn ychwanegol o gyllid refeniw yn mynd i Gyngor Cyllido Addysg Uwch Cymru ac yn cael ei ffurfioli yn y gyllideb hon i ymateb i bwysau ariannol nawr ac yn y dyfodol, gan gynnwys gweithredu argymhellion adroddiad Diamond.

Mae’r ail gyllideb atodol hon yn cynyddu cyllid i ddatblygu economi Cymru a’n seilwaith trafnidiaeth: mae cyfalaf o £47 miliwn wedi'i ddyrannu i gefnogi’r gwaith o adeiladu a chynnal y rhwydwaith cefnffyrdd yng Nghymru, gyda £8.5 miliwn arall o gyllid refeniw i sefydlu Trafnidiaeth Cymru i baratoi ar gyfer cyfrifoldebau rhyddfreintiau. Mae'r gyllideb atodol hon hefyd yn cyfochri buddsoddiad ychwanegol o £33.4 miliwn mewn grantiau cyfalaf a benthyciadau i gyflawni blaenoriaethau datblygu economaidd, gan gefnogi swyddi cynaliadwy a thwf ar hyd a lled y wlad.

Lywydd, gan fod cyllidebau atodol yn bennaf yn weinyddol eu natur, mae'r gyllideb hon yn manylu ar yr amrywiol addasiadau eraill sydd i'w gwneud i'n cyllidebau yn y flwyddyn ariannol hon, gan gynnwys unrhyw newidiadau i floc Cymru sy'n deillio o benderfyniadau Llywodraeth y DU, diwygiadau i ragolygon y gwariant a reolir yn flynyddol, a throsglwyddiadau eraill rhwng ac o fewn portffolios gweinidogion.

Hoffwn ddiolch i'r Pwyllgor Cyllid unwaith eto am graffu ar y gyllideb atodol hon a gofynnaf i'r Aelodau ei chefnogi y prynhawn yma.

I call on the Chair of the Finance Committee, Simon Thomas.

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I speak, of course, on behalf of the Finance Committee, which has reported on the supplementary budget, and the full report and the recommendations are available to Members. I want to focus on four areas here where the Finance Committee were looking for more information or more work by the Government.

First of all, you will remember, I hope, that I have spoken before in the debate on the draft budget about the need for the Government to do more to show how budget allocations are influenced by the well-being of future generations Act. While we realise, of course, and accept that this is a supplementary budget, we had hoped to have seen more evidence of how that Act had influenced decision making in relation to internal allocations following the last budget. In the committee meeting, the Cabinet Secretary listed a number of allocations as evidence of how the spending meets the well-being goals, and we were grateful that he had come ready and prepared to do that. However, we felt that this list seemed to be an artificial list of allocations, in a way, which just so happened to meet the requirements of the Act, as opposed to evidence of this Act being at the forefront of the decisions being made by the Welsh Government. As we reported on the last draft budget, we felt that there is a need to improve on this issue of how the Act influences allocations, and we will be returning to this in due course.

Secondly, in the field of health, social care and winter pressures, we noted in our report that more than 70 per cent of the additional fiscal revenue allocations made in this supplementary budget go to the health, well-being and sport portfolio, namely £75.9 million to help address the forecast overspends by health boards, and £50 million to address winter pressures.

While the additional funding being allocated for winter pressures is to be welcomed, we are concerned that these seasonal variations are not being planned for in the three-year planning process. Therefore, it’s a disappointment to the committee that the Welsh Government hasn’t taken advantage of the opportunity in the National Health Service Finance (Wales) Act 2014 to ensure that the health boards plan better over a period of three years.

We welcome, nevertheless, the Cabinet Secretary’s commitment to investigate whether there are structural issues behind the overspending at some health boards, but we remain concerned that, should the Welsh Government continue to bail out health boards that overspend, although paying through departmental expenditure limits rather than directly, the health boards won’t have any incentive to implement stringent spending policies to ensure that they remain within budget.

The third area that we wanted to report on was the allocation in the supplementary budget of £20 million to HEFCW. The purpose of this allocation was to ameliorate the pressures connected to the implementation of the Diamond report recommendations, and we believe that further scrutiny of higher education funding is needed, including monitoring the implementation of the Diamond review recommendations. I’ll be writing to the Children, Young People and Education Committee to ensure this is considered, and, if it’s not appropriate for that committee to consider, it’s likely the Finance Committee will want to do follow-up work on the work that our predecessor committee looked at in the fourth Assembly.

The final area of recommendations by the Finance Committee is economy and infrastructure. We noted that revenue allocations to this portfolio, excluding non-cash changes, have increased by nearly £40 million, and capital allocations have increased by more than £45 million. We concluded that the documentation accompanying the supplementary budget could have provided more transparency around some of those allocations, particularly the £30.8 million increase in the sectors action in respect of economic development priorities and the £22 million in capital funding provided for the M4 route development.

We were surprised by the allocation of funds for the M4 route development, particularly as this funding is primarily for a public inquiry. We therefore recommend that future budget documentation provides much more detail and much more transparency about the purpose of the allocations. We also noted the additional capital loan funding for Cardiff Airport, and we’ve recommended that the Welsh Government commit to providing a detailed profile of funding provided to Cardiff Airport and details of when outstanding debt is due to be repaid. Thank you very much.

Before I call on the next speaker, Members will be aware that there is a high-pitched tone in the Chamber at the moment. We are looking into the issue and, if required, I will adjourn the session at the end of this debate, but we will continue for the moment. Adam Price.

First of all, I would like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement and also thank the Chair of the Finance Committee for sharing his committee’s comments on the second supplementary budget for this current financial year.

Generally speaking, I would endorse the main recommendations made by the committee, outlined by my colleague Simon Thomas, and specifically emphasise the need to tackle the lack of information and transparency, which is becoming a regular theme as we have these debates.

We are grateful, of course, to the Cabinet Secretary for the explanatory notes that he provided with the supplementary budget—some 50 pages. But surely there is still room for improvement. The lack of transparency, as we have heard, is very clear, for example, in issues related to the health budget. The committee has drawn attention to this in the past, and particularly to how the budget is divided between primary, secondary, and social care, and so on. There's a transfer, for example, in this supplementary budget of over £15 million from the support mental health policies and legislation action to that huge beast of an action that is the core expenditure on the national health service, which is a sum of over £6.2 billion. Now, the general concern is that this funding will be actually swallowed up by that core expenditure and be very difficult to monitor in future. Therefore, I would urge the Cabinet Secretary once again to provide greater transparency in future in terms of these allocations generally and certainly within the health budget.

There is mention in the supplementary budget of additional allocations from the invest-to-save fund, with reference to savings of £3.4 million for NRW, £0.5 million for numeracy and literacy, for example, as well as repayments into the fund—that is, the invest-to-save fund; that’s what we’re talking about here. Now, once again, there aren’t many details available as to the sums borrowed and repaid, or about the timetabling of those repayments under this programme.

If we are going to do our proper work in carrying out proper scrutiny of the efficiency of this fund then we need this information to be clearly set out. An annual report, as suggested by the committee, would be a very good idea. Generally speaking, the concern that we have—and it is encapsulated in this motion for the supplementary budget—is that there’s a lack of transparency once again. That doesn’t allow us, therefore, to hold the Government to account.

Mae’n rhaid i mi ddweud, gan gyfeirio at brif grŵp gwariant yr economi a’r seilwaith—ac mae gan hwnnw un o'r trosglwyddiadau cyfalaf mwyaf, tua £80.6 miliwn, er enghraifft—y broblem yn y fan honno, ac mae'n thema a oedd wrth wraidd araith ddiweddar fy nghyfaill, arweinydd Plaid Cymru yng nghynhadledd Plaid Cymru, yw: sut allwn ni mewn gwirionedd weld bod buddsoddiad yn cael ei ddosbarthu’n deg ar draws Cymru, wyddoch chi, ymagwedd Cymru gyfan i fuddsoddiad y Llywodraeth, ar wyneb y gyllideb atodol hon? Mae'n amhosibl dod i'r casgliad hwnnw ar sail y wybodaeth a gawn, heblaw i ddweud, mewn gwirionedd, o’r prosiectau a nodwyd yn ddaearyddol, bod dros 95 y cant ohonynt yng Nghaerdydd a’r de-ddwyrain. Rydym wedi cael cyfeiriad eisoes at y cyllid paratoadol ychwanegol braidd yn rhyfedd ar gyfer prosiect yr M4 yn y de-ddwyrain, a chyfeiriad at Faes Awyr Caerdydd. Mae cyfeiriad yn yr wybodaeth atodol at gronfeydd wrth gefn yn cael eu dal yn ôl ar gyfer bargen dinas Caerdydd. Ceir ffordd gyswllt dwyrain y bae, y ganolfan gynadledda ryngwladol yng Nghasnewydd, a gwaith Blaenau'r Cymoedd i fyny ym Mrynmawr. Felly, yr unig eithriad y tu allan i’r de-ddwyrain a Chaerdydd mewn gwirionedd yw £0.5 miliwn i ActionAid yn Abertawe, a £4 miliwn wedi’i rannu ar draws safleoedd Tata ledled Cymru. Mae'n rhaid i mi ddweud wrth Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet nad yw hynny'n dderbyniol. Mae'n ddigon posibl, yn afloywder y gyllideb atodol, bod prosiectau yn y gogledd ac yn y canolbarth ac yn y gorllewin ac ym Mro Morgannwg nad ydym yn gwybod amdanynt, ond dyna'r pwynt: nid ydym yn gwybod amdanyn nhw, nid oes modd i ni wybod amdanyn nhw, ar sail y wybodaeth sydd gennym, ac, am y ddau reswm hynny—y diffyg tryloywder a’r diffyg tegwch amlwg o ran buddsoddiad y Llywodraeth ar draws Cymru—byddwn yn pleidleisio yn erbyn y gyllideb atodol hon.

Can I welcome today’s debate on the supplementary budget? It’s probably not the budget that is getting the most press coverage in the world—at least in the UK—this week. Welsh Conservatives recognise that this budget does contain an in-year management process aimed at aligning resources with priorities—that rather difficult process, as the Cabinet Secretary referred to it in his sessions with the Finance Committee. We also recognise the increases resulting from increased Government spending and other transfers that have been factored in. Can I also concur with the sentiments of the Chair of the Finance Committee? We had a number of useful sessions in committee looking at this and identifying many of the areas that the Chair alluded to, particularly that referred to by recommendation 1, which questions the effectiveness of the implementation of the future generations Bill. I think there is a broader question here about the legislation that the Assembly passes, and whether it does actually achieve what it sets out to do on the ground. Many of the voices concerned—. Many of the concerns voiced, I should say, at the time of the passing of the Bill seem to be coming to fruition. We do need the Welsh Government to reapply itself to making sure that this legislation is properly embedded within the decision-making culture of the Welsh Government. It shouldn’t just be an add-on; it should be there at every level, and it should be perceived to be so.

I’ll leave recommendation 2 on the invest-to-save fund to my colleague Mike Hedges—I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m sure he’s going to say something about it; yes, I can tell by his smile that he is—other than to say that I do think that invest-to-save has proved a good scheme in the past and delivers results.

Of greater concern, I think, and this does follow on from some of the comments made by Adam Price, is the issue of transparency. We return to this again and again, in the subject of budget debates but also in other areas that we debate here. It’s alluded to in recommendation 3, specifically in this case the lack of transparency over the funding allocated in the health, well-being and sport portfolio, and the reasons for funding decisions that often seem to be more reactionary and linked to dealing with problems as they emerge rather than addressing the root of these problems.

The Welsh Government can, and probably will, argue that this is a supplementary budget—a second supplementary budget—so maybe we shouldn’t be expecting too much on this front today. But, it is a budget nonetheless and it does make some key changes to the situation that we had before. So, we do look for changes to be well supported and well evidenced, and we certainly look in future, as the Finance Committee has said, for these changes to be tracked and to be evident in future budget-setting processes. We’ve been calling for this for a very long time, and we do really want to see solid, robust evidence for this as we move forward.

Turning to the roads section of the Finance Committee report, again Adam Price mentioned the £15 million for the eastern bay link road. As I’ve pointed out in previous budgets, this is of course not for the whole eastern bay link road—this is for one part of one section of the link road that will terminate at the roundabout to nowhere, as it’s known, on Rover Way. I’ve had issues with this in the past—I still do. I support the road as a whole, but I do question whether there is going to be value for money delivered from delivering one section of that road in the short term. There is the potential for some major congestion problems being moved elsewhere in Cardiff without any future plans for continuation of the building of the rest of that road.

As for the £22 million for the M4 route development, the saga continues there, doesn’t it? The committee was concerned that there was insufficient information in the budget about this £22 million. To be fair, the Cabinet Secretary, in the evidence session, did give more details, but that wasn’t there at the start. I understand that this money is there to provide support for more work for the public inquiry and to deal with a higher than expected number of objections. I’m not quite sure why it was expected that there would be a lower number of objections, because it isn’t the least controversial scheme in the world. I think that that could have been factored in at the start.

As I say, in conclusion, Presiding Officer, I hope that future budgets can see improved transparency—the holy grail for the Finance Committee. As I said at the start, the Welsh Conservatives recognise the rationale behind the decisions made in this second supplementary budget and the transfers of funding involved. However, because we do have issues with transparency and we do have issues with the original budget on which the two supplementary budgets have been based, we cannot support this supplementary budget.

I thank Nick Ramsay for his contribution. The conclusion ‘we cannot support’ I thought was rather Delphic, since it leaves two possible interpretations.

The situation we find on this budget is that UKIP were not part of the Assembly at the time that the initial budget was passed for this year. A number of the changes from head-to-head or main expenditure groups are, I think, difficult to object to. I think we have a few particular issues. I concur with what the Chair of the Finance Committee said about the well-being of future generations Act. I must compliment the Cabinet Secretary, as he was at least well prepared, I think, for our questioning on that area as to how the well-being of future generations Act had influenced the formation of the supplementary budget. He told us about the £10 million for the Heads of the Valleys road—that was all about a more prosperous Wales—and then £16 million for the new treatment fund—that was all about a healthier Wales. So, congratulations on that, but I think we were still unconvinced as to the extent to which this Act really was drilling down and determining Government action to the extent that its plaudits would claim.

We had a very interesting, I felt, discussion at committee with the Cabinet Secretary about overruns within spending within the health MEG, and I think he made a compelling case as to why it was appropriate to fund those overfunds at the health MEG overall level. But, he didn’t want to increase the budget to recognise those overspends because that would reduce the incentive for appropriate spending control in future, but also because those overruns, I think, were particularly in areas that he thought on a needs basis were getting a higher degree of allocation. Certainly, if we were looking at income and health outcomes on a formula, my own area of south-east Wales perhaps had relatively less allocation before, and to recognise these overspends elsewhere would set that in stone, which we agreed was not an appropriate way forward.

The work on the infrastructure side—the £15 million for the eastern bay relief road—at least I think it is an improvement that we can then use Rover Way to get to that roundabout, but can the Cabinet Secretary say anything about when he proposes dualling, to complete what would in effect be a ring road for Cardiff, and make that £15 million itself much more productive in terms of its spending?

My major concerns—and I’ll be very interested in what the Cabinet Secretary says in response—again relate to the higher education funding settlement. In light of the evidence the Cabinet Secretary gave, the Finance Committee stated:

‘The planned technical transfer of £21.1 million from HEFCW’s budget to the budget line from which the tuition fee grant is now paid, was not implemented at the time.’

By which we meant in the final budget. Then, we said:

‘This Supplementary Budget reinstates this intended £21.1 million transfer’.

Is it correct that this a technical transfer, or is the Cabinet Secretary for Education right in what she said to the Children, Young People and Education Committee? She said:

‘I issued a revised remit letter to HEFCW on 17 October, making clear that the latest information from the Student Loans Company suggests expenditure on the TFG will be in excess of original estimates of £257.6m for 2016-17. We will therefore action the transfer of £21.1m from HEFCW to Welsh Government in the 2nd supplementary budget partly to cover the additional expenditure.’

So, is that transfer a technical matter, or is it being driven by the need to fund that cost overrun? Could the Cabinet Secretary also clarify what he describes as being formalised in this budget, which we referred to in the committee as an additional allocation of £20 million for HEFCW for a suite of measures to deal with current and future financial pressures relating to the implementation of the Diamond report recommendation? I mean, isn’t the Diamond review because we recognise that it was unsustainable to maintain the tuition fee grant as it was, and the costs of that were exploding, and that was going to be taking away from elsewhere in the Welsh budget? Why is it that, despite the Diamond review, we are still having the pressures, and the implementation of the Diamond review is yet another reason to find yet more money to put into this budget? Is the priority of his Government really to put as much money as possible into handing out student grants, rather than putting it into areas of the economy and infrastructure, and rather than putting it into the health service? It’s welcome that they’re no longer going on a means-tested basis to families earning £81,000, but still, does he really have the money, and is it really his priority to deprive other areas of spending so as to concentrate spending on this area, to such a very significant extent?

I speak in support of the second supplementary budget, but there are three points that I want to raise. First, on the health budget, according to the evidence received by the Finance Committee—and I’ll just quote from the report—

‘The Supplementary Budget includes £180 million fiscal, or cash, revenue, £4 million non-cash revenue and £3 million capital to the Health, Well-being and Sport portfolio. Of the additional fiscal revenue allocations made to departments, 71.5% go to this portfolio.’

It’s 71.5 per cent when the budget is pushing 50 per cent, so if it only had it pro rata it would have been running at around about 50 per cent, rather than 71.5 per cent.

‘This includes £75.9m to help address forecast overspends by health boards (£68.4m announced in November and a further £7.5m allocated in January).’

That came as a surprise. My experience of health boards and the old hospital boards was that that they overspent in the first quarter—massively—overspent slightly in the second quarter, and then started bringing things back in the third and fourth quarter. What we’ve actually seen here is continuation of an overspend in the third quarter, which I find surprising, disappointing and problematic.

‘£50m to address winter pressures and to sustain and improve performance during winter period; £27m to address the estimated shortfall of income from the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme; £16m to support the launch of the new Treatment Fund; £1m for the air ambulance service.’

‘Funding for winter pressures has been included in second supplementary budgets in recent years; £50 million in 2016-17; £45 million in 2015-16 and £40 million in 2014-15.’

I’m open to correction by others, but it’s not been a particularly cold winter, and I’ve seen no evidence of a major outbreak of influenza, so I don’t understand why additional money for winter pressures needs to be in the supplementary budget. Either it’s needed each year, and should be in the base budget, or it is not needed.

Can I turn to committee recommendation 1, that

‘the Welsh Government review whether there are structural factors, which are not currently considered in health board allocation, that impact on health boards’ ability to deliver services within their resource allocations. The Welsh Government should implement any changes to funding allocations’?

If two health boards need additional money each year, then either the formula allocating the finance is wrong and is leaving them underfunded—meaning they have to seek additional funding each year—or they are not managing their resources effectively, or a combination of the two. I am very, very pleased that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance said at the Finance Committee that

‘he was working with the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport to establish whether there were issues behind the overspends which were out of the hands of the health boards involved.’

But we can’t keep on increasing the percentage of the money we spend on health—until we get to 100 per cent; at that time, we have to stop. But there are an awful lot of other services as well. I’m going to be boring now, because I say this all the time: we should be spending more money on trying to stop people being ill in the first place, improving people’s health, trying to cut down on type 2 diabetes by making people lose weight and not end up in that situation, trying to get people more active so they tend not to have the problems that come with inactivity. And most importantly of all—I was going to quote David Melding for something he said several years ago, before I was a Member here—the most important thing that can be done is to stop people smoking. And if we can do more to stop people smoking, then we can deal with some of the health problems. The other thing is that—and I’ve said this many times before, but I’m going to say it again—can we ensure that doctors do not undertake interventions that either do harm or do no good?

Briefly, on two other points: my support for invest-to-save is well known, and I thank Nick Ramsay for being my lead-in on this, but an income and expenditure sheet would be very helpful. I understand some invest-to-save schemes will take longer to pay back than we expect. That’s inevitable, and if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be using the scheme effectively because we’d only be playing safe. We have a group of reasonable people on the Finance Committee, and I think that if we see that some of them take five years rather than three years, but the intention was there, then we’re not going to be criticising and attacking the Government for doing something if it’s doing good. It also means that people can identify those that aren’t worth copying into other areas. Now, I think the danger is that if we don’t identify those which take a little longer to pay back, people may decide to copy those where it’s not advantageous.

Finally, there are a number of changes in the supplementary budget in relation to the funding of student loans. The Welsh Government uses a complex modelling system to estimate the cost of providing student loans and the present value of the current loan book. My concern is—and it’s not for this supplementary budget, but it’s sort of mentioned for the Government—after 30 years from the beginning of the loan system, loans will start being written off. Is there any risk being faced by the Welsh Government when we approach the first student loan write-offs? Who will pick up the cost? After we go to the time of 30 years from when they went up to £9,000, it’s going to be even worse. So, it’s just a question really—not for now, but perhaps for the future. What’s going to happen with the student loans as they become non-paid?

I completely agree with Mike Hedges about spending more money on preventing people getting ill in the first place. I just wanted to pick up some points that were made about the eastern bay relief road, because there’s no point in building a road and then only three quarters completing it. Having done the link road, we just need to complete it, and this small sum of money, relatively, to the overall cost, will actually—. You say that there’s nothing happening in Rover Way; actually it does link it, then, up to the A48, and I’m hoping it will then take a lot of traffic away from the very busy Newport Road—particularly the residential end of it.

Thanks for giving way. I think the key word you used there, Jenny, was ‘hoping’, and yes, ultimately we would hope that a lot of traffic would be taken from the centre, but my point is: until there are plans to build that second part of the eastern bay link, the first part of the eastern bay link is threatening to make things far worse for Rover Way.

Having made this connection, I think that will, then, complete it, but I haven’t looked at the detail recently. Frankly, if it doesn’t deviate the road, we’ll have to take other measures to ensure it does. I just wanted to use this opportunity to speak about the childcare offer in ‘Taking Wales Forward’ and look at the amount of money that’s been allocated so far to delivering that pledge. There’s £10 million this year in the communities and children’s budget to pilot the childcare pledge for 30 hours a week for 48 weeks a year, which is a very ambitious pledge, which I welcome greatly. There’s a further £20 million allocated in the education budget for the following year to invest in childcare settings alongside the twenty-first century schools programme. I note that Carl Sargeant has told the children and young people’s committee, back in November, that the current best estimate of the annual cost of delivering the childcare pledge overall is £100 million. So, 30 hours of free early education and childcare to the working parents of three and four-year olds—obviously, all those children are entitled to 10 hours of nursery education from the term after their third birthday. So, the challenge is providing the other 20 hours of childcare, plus 30 hours during school holidays.

Early years provision in Wales has focused on the developmental needs of young children to date. Both the foundation phase and Flying Start are founded on evidence of what makes the greatest impact on children’s life chances, but they’re costly strategies. A Flying Start childcare place in Wales costs £11.32 compared to £5.62 an hour that a childcare provider in England receives for a deprived childcare place. In Cardiff, there are particular challenges in meeting this very exciting pledge. We have 26 primary schools with nursery provision at the moment, but simply extending the hours children are in school to 30 isn’t possible because 3,300 places are mainly delivered in two cohorts. So, you have the morning nursery and the afternoon nursery, all in the same room. So, other solutions are going to have to be found and, in any case, inner-city schools have little spare capacity to expand because they’re simply hedged in by other buildings.

There are some good examples of wraparound care in my constituency at Ysgol y Berllan Deg, which has a private bilingual nursery at the bottom of the garden, and at Roath Park Primary School, which has a private nursery just around the corner. In both cases, they’re close enough to school for three-year-olds to walk over there for their nursery entitlement. These are good examples of public-private collaboration, but other parts of my constituency are unlikely to see market solutions to deliver this pledge. One such area is the Pentwyn ward, which is the largest housing estate in Wales. The only childcare offer at the moment is from childminders. I recently visited the excellent Ely children’s centre, which is in the Cabinet Secretary’s constituency, which provides outstanding nursery education and childcare as well as professional leadership for other early years providers. But it’s the only children’s centre in the whole of Cardiff: the fastest-growing city in the UK and the largest in Wales. My own view is there’s going to be a need for a lot more children centres like Ely if the 30-hours pledge is going to be delivered to all working parents, not just the ones in the better-off areas where the market will provide. There’s some evidence of that from the English experience. So, I think this is an issue that we need to consider further when we’re discussing the budget in future years.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary to respond to the debate.

Well, thank you, Llywydd.

A gaf i ddechrau drwy ddiolch i Simon Thomas am yr hyn a ddywedodd ar ran y Pwyllgor Cyllid? Edrychaf ymlaen at ymateb yn fanwl i'r argymhellion y mae’r Pwyllgor Cyllid wedi eu gwneud. Rwyf am wneud fy ngorau i fod mor adeiladol â phosibl a rhoi gymaint o wybodaeth ag y bo modd wrth wneud hynny. Gallwn, fodd bynnag, gysylltu fy hun am eiliad â'r pwynt a wnaed gan Nick Ramsay Ddelffig, pan ddywedodd efallai nad dod i gasgliadau cyffredinol o’r gyllideb atodol yw’r dull gweithredu mwyaf synhwyrol. Ac yn yr areithiau yr ydym wedi eu clywed y prynhawn yma, mae rhai ymdrechion glew i greu strwythurau ehangach mawr iawn ar sylfeini cul yr hyn sydd, wedi'r cyfan, yn rhan safonol dechnegol o'r broses rheoli ariannol. Rwyf wedi cytuno yn flaenorol â'r Pwyllgor Cyllid am y ffaith bod yn rhaid gwneud mwy i ddefnyddio Deddf Llesiant Cenedlaethau'r Dyfodol (Cymru) 2015 yn y ffordd yr ydym yn llunio’r pethau hyn. Deuthum i'r Pwyllgor Cyllid gyda’r hyn yr wyf yn credu oedd yn ymgais wirioneddol i geisio dangos rhai o'r ffyrdd y mae'r penderfyniadau a wnaed yn y gyllideb atodol yn adlewyrchu cyngor y Ddeddf honno. Ond nid yw cyllideb atodol byth am fod yr ateb cyflawn i Ddeddf o’r fath, ac edrychaf ymlaen at wneud mwy ar hynny yn y dyfodol.

Cyn belled ag y mae buddsoddi i arbed yn y cwestiwn, mae'r cynllun buddsoddi i arbed eisoes yn cyhoeddi adroddiad blynyddol bob blwyddyn am ei waith, ac roedd fy rhagflaenydd, Jane Hutt, wedi cyflwyno i’r Pwyllgor Cyllid diwethaf yr union beth y gofynnodd Mike Hedges amdano o ran datganiad incwm a gwariant, ac os byddai’n ddefnyddiol, yr wyf yn fodlon diweddaru hynny ar gyfer y Pwyllgor Cyllid presennol.

A gaf i roi cynnig ar ateb rhai o'r pwyntiau a godwyd gan Mark Reckless, yn enwedig o ran y MEG addysg? Cyn belled ag y bo refeniw yn y cwestiwn, mae’r gyllideb atodol hon yn cynnwys tri phrif ychwanegiad at yr adnoddau addysg: £3.5 miliwn i gyfrannu at bwysau cyllid myfyrwyr, a hynny oherwydd bod gennym amddiffyniad carfan ar gyfer myfyrwyr yn y system bresennol wrth i ni symud i Diamond; £4.47 miliwn fel blaendal ar ymrwymiad y Llywodraeth hon o £100 miliwn i godi safonau ysgolion yn ystod tymor y Cynulliad hwn; ac yna £20 miliwn ar gyfer Cyngor Cyllido Addysg Uwch Cymru ar gyfer y pedwar diben a grybwyllais gerbron y Pwyllgor Cyllid pan oeddwn i ger ei fron.

Will the Cabinet Secretary give way?

Of course.

So, is the £21.1 million a technical reclassification, or is it to pay for an overshoot in the budget?

I did hear the Member make that point in his contribution, Llywydd. I want to make sure I give him the most accurate answer to his question, so I will reply to him separately to today’s debate to make sure that he has the most accurate account in response to his inquiry.

Can I say generally in relation to health that this Government makes no apology whatsoever for using opportunities that come our way to invest further in the health service? That has always been our priority; it will continue to be our priority. Of course I agree with Mike Hedges’s point that prevention would always be better than cure, but Members here have heard a statement this afternoon on stroke services. No Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for health will ever be in a position to say to somebody who has suffered a stroke already and who needs treatment, ‘I’m sorry, you’re not going to get that treatment because I’ve diverted money to prevent somebody else suffering in this way in the future.’ It’s simply not possible to operate in that way. You have to somehow manage to deal with the very real needs of today while trying our best to find ways of investing so that we can prevent pressures in the future.

Llywydd, can I end by turning to what I thought was an extraordinarily ill-judged contribution from Adam Price? He’ll be happy to know that Plaid Cymru’s message to the people of Cardiff that the Assembly Government does too much for them and that too much money is spent in Cardiff is already well known to—. [Interruption.] No, I won’t. No, no. He can listen to me for once. I’m not giving way. I’m not giving way, Llywydd.

The Cabinet Secretary is not giving way.

I’m not giving way. He can listen for a moment. He’ll be pleased to know that my constituents have already heard that message loud and clear from his party. As far as they are concerned, this Welsh Government spends too much on them, and money should be taken away from them to be spent elsewhere. But more extraordinarily still, Llywydd—far more extraordinarily still—will be the fact that he intends to cast his vote this afternoon to deny the public who live in his constituency—and, indeed, the constituencies of almost every other Plaid Cymru Member I can see—the help that this supplementary budget would give them: the money that this budget is providing for Hywel Dda Local Health Board; the money that this budget will provide to Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board; the money that makes it possible for services to go on being provided—[Interruption.] I’ve already told him I’m not giving way. So, the money that this supplementary budget will provide to people who live in his constituency—[Interruption.]—and he will vote today to deny them that help. It was an extraordinarily ill-judged contribution. [Interruption.] I do hope that other Members will not feel obliged to follow him in that way. It is through our careful financial management that we have been able to earmark reserves. We will carry those forward where we can to the coming financial year. We’ve deployed them in this financial year to support our public services—they will support key priorities, they will provide some additional contingency. Passing this supplementary budget is necessary to make sure that the things that people across Wales rely on every day go on being able to—

A point of order, Llywydd—

There is no point of order. Cabinet Secretary, carry on. The Cabinet Secretary has the floor.

For that reason, I hope that Members will be willing to support it this afternoon. Thank you.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Object. I will defer voting therefore until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.