I’m pleased to contribute to today’s debate, and to have taken part in the scrutiny of the supplementary budget by the Assembly’s Finance Committee that was mentioned by the Cabinet Secretary earlier, the conclusions of which are in our report, quite a succinct report, well worth the read—short, yes—well worth a read when Members get a chance.

This is the first supplementary budget, as we’ve heard from the Cabinet Secretary. Can I concur with the words of the Chair of the Finance Committee? A supplementary budget may be just one technical way of making in-year changes to a budget, but the Finance Committee did conclude that it was an appropriate way and the most appropriate mechanism to make this type of in-year adjustments. We need to ensure that it is continued to be used as the mechanism in future by future finance Secretaries. It’s transparent, understandable and it’s a system that has worked in the absence of a preferable solution. We believe that supplementary budgets are the way ahead. And we do believe that the finance Cabinet Secretary has dealt with the committee in a very open and transparent way, but we did question whether in future Cabinet Secretaries for finance might be quite so open, so there may be a case for looking at regularising the supplementary budget process to make sure that the process is as smooth in future as it has been hitherto.

Without going into all the areas that the Chair of the committee has mentioned, I do appreciate that this is a mainly administrative supplementary budget and it does include adjustments and various consequentials to the Welsh block, which resulted from the 2017 UK budget.

Specifically, I welcome the £20 million for the Cardiff capital region city deal, and also the £750,000 provision for Wi-Fi on trains and stations. That was discussed to a great extent during our scrutiny sessions. That was to be welcomed. However, I’m afraid to say Welsh Conservatives will be abstaining on today’s motion since it does ultimately amend the previous budget, which we did not support.