Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today’s debate shines a spotlight on the workings of the Welsh Labour Government and so too on its failings—a Government that has systematically failed to improve living standards for our residents here in Wales. Twenty one per cent of our students are under-proficient in reading; PISA results and GVA are the lowest in the UK; funding for GP services has been cut by £20 million over four years; NHS spend per head is the lowest in the UK; treatment waiting times for routine procedures are two-and-a-half times longer in Wales than in England; one in seven are still lingering on an NHS waiting list; and 127 patients have waited over 105 weeks for treatments such as hip replacements and knee replacements—yes, on the NHS in Wales. So, it should come as no surprise, then, that the Nuffield Trust has said,

‘Wales’s lengthening waiting times should set alarm bells ringing amongst policy-makers’.

By that, of course, they mean the Welsh Labour Government. Now, we face a social care crisis—a forecast of doubling costs over the next 13 years, and yet no strategic forward work management planning in place by this Labour Government.

Locally, there have been £299 million in local government budget cuts since 2013 that have seen many of our vital local services eroded. Council tax, on the other hand, is rising by an average of 3.6 per cent again this year, with Conwy, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire raising bills by an inflation-busting 5 per cent, thanks to Plaid Cymru and Labour—higher than all but three councils in England and Scotland, and now many more are facing further hikes of up to 4.6 per cent for 2017-18.

Deputy Presiding Officer, our residents pay a significantly higher proportion of their pay packets towards council tax bills than any other British nation. Little wonder, then, that Citizens Advice has labelled council tax as Wales’s single biggest debt problem for our families for the second year running. The failure of the Welsh Labour Government to properly utilise consequential funding of over £94 million that came to Wales provided by, yes, the Conservative-led Government in Westminster between 2010 and 2016 is seeing Welsh council tax payers robbed of their own income to the tune of over £794—