It's certainly not immune to needing to make efficiencies where it possibly can make them, and you'll have noted, being a member of the committee, that efficiencies have been made, initially in staffing, and certainly in contracts over the previous years. But we're also in a position, as you heard during my opening remarks, where this Assembly, this parliament, is taking on huge new responsibilities, some of them coming via legislation, and some of them coming through the general ambition that we all have for this to be a world-class parliament. I think it is worth pointing out that this budget is 0.35 per cent of the whole of the Welsh block grant. That doesn't mean that it's not worth the most thorough of scrutiny. But as I mentioned earlier, there are just 44 of us to scrutinise the remaining 99.65 per cent of that block grant, and we need the excellent parliamentary support to enable us to do that effectively because we are so small in number. For example, legislation takes as much effort and work for 3 million people as it would for 30 million people. And it needs as much scrutiny, whether there are 44 of us or over 100 of us. The fewer of us there are, the greater our call on the central support of the Commission. I'd like to take this opportunity to record my thanks to the staff of the Commission and all the parliamentary support services for their dedication and for going that extra mile.

The greatest challenge, I think, for this Commission will be to ensure that the Assembly, charged as it is with greater responsibility, as I mentioned, is properly equipped to do the job. If you have any complaints about what local government is getting, that is a matter for Welsh Government, and I would like us to use our tiny budget in order to improve parliamentary services to help us scrutinise that Welsh Government budget properly.

Our aim remains to set and maintain high standards during a time of close public scrutiny and to enhance our reputation as an international, open, world-class parliamentary institution. On behalf of the Llywydd and my fellow Commissioners, I give a full and sincere promise that we do all we can to use our resources, provided by this budget, to ensure that we meet those challenges in the most efficient way possible.