Well, I say this to the Member: I share the WLGA’s ambition for a three-year cycle—I wish I was in a position to do that for them—but we do not have a Welsh Government budget for the third year of this cycle because there has been no comprehensive spending review by the incoming Government, elected in June of this year, and in circumstances where I simply do not know how much money we will have available to use for all public services in Wales, I cannot give local government a sensible and reliable indicative budget for that third year. I wish I was in a position to do that, because I understand the points that they made to you and that you made this afternoon about that helping them to be able to plan.

I made a judgment, Dirprwy Lywydd, that it was possible to provide a firm budget for next year and a reliably indicative budget for the second year in the budget that I laid on 3 October. Without the figures that I need from the UK Government about what the shape of the Welsh Government’s budget will be in the third year, I simply didn’t have reliable enough information to be able to give local government figures on which they could plan properly.