As the January 2009 Institute for Fiscal Studies publication, 'The public finances under Labour' stated,

'Labour entered the current crisis with one of the largest structural budget deficits in the industrial world and a bigger debt than most OECD countries, having done less to reduce debt and—in particular—borrowing than most since 1997.'

In terms of Keynesianism therefore, they broke the economic cycle. In 2010, the Conservative-led coalition inherited the highest budget deficit in peacetime UK history. But, as every debtor knows, you can't reduce debt until expenditure falls below income. Those high-deficit countries that rejected austerity got it in full measure. Thanks to the hard work of people across the UK, however, the deficit here is down by over two thirds, falling to a level last seen before the financial crisis. But we still need to get our debt down—not for some ideological reason but because excessive debt undermines our economic security, leaving us vulnerable to shocks.

As a senior Bank of England official warned last week,

'Britain cannot afford to borrow more without jeopardising the country's financial stability'.

Now, although £1.2 billion more is coming to the Welsh Government from the UK Treasury, significant Welsh Government funding into communities that are lagging behind has not borne fruit. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report released yesterday states:

'Across the four countries of the UK, Wales has consistently had the highest poverty'.

After the Red Cross highlighted the need to ensure financial provision for preventative services, referred to earlier by my colleague Nick Ramsay, I asked the Finance Secretary in October what consideration he'd given to financial provision in the context that community-driven development at local authority level mobilising individuals, associations and institutions to come together and build on their social, cultural and material assets, putting them at the heart of decisions, will prevent care needs from becoming more serious and therefore save money for public authorities. In reply, the Cabinet Secretary agreed with me about the need for all public services 

'to make sure that, when people are involved with public services, they are not regarded as problems to be solved, but as joint participants in the business of bringing about improvement.'

That was the Secretary's quote. He added:

'local authorities that seek to engage their citizens in that positive way are likely to be able to make greater impacts with the budgets they have, particularly at the preventative end.'

However, widespread concerns have been raised that this budget takes us in the opposite direction. In your draft budget deal with Plaid Cymru, you agreed to ring-fence Supporting People funding and increase it by £10 million annually for two years. But a subsequent letter to local authority chief executives revealed that local authorities would be given spending flexibility across Supporting People and four other non-housing related grants, meaning that the Supporting People funding is not guaranteed to be protected. If the Welsh Government now removes the funding ring fence and merges the Supporting People grant with other non-housing grants, we would no longer be able to understand how much is being spent on housing-related support services in Wales, or to hold Welsh Government Ministers to account over this.

Representing housing associations and third sector providers, Hafan Cymru has therefore called for the reinstatement of the ring fence and protection of Supporting People funding. Welsh Women's Aid state that plans in this budget to effectively remove the ring fencing of Supporting People and violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence grants will very likely result in the dismantling of our national network of third sector specialist services that provide life-saving and life-changing support.

In the interests of access and inclusion, the Community Transport Association has called for an end to short-term funding cycles, which prevent charitable operators planning for the future, a review of the concessionary fares formula to prevent their financial loss, and budget support for cross-departmental working, which recognises that they are increasingly providing health and social care services, not just transport.

In this debate last year, I warned against a £5.5 million Welsh Government cut to the charity Family Fund and the impact that this would have on the most vulnerable families with disabled children. When the Family Fund presented at the last meeting of the cross-party group on disability, they told us that the number of grants awarded to families had fallen from £5,429 in 2015-16 to just £875 this year, and that the majority of families without grant support said that there was no other support available to them. Well, this is both morally and financially irresponsible, and I urge the Welsh Government to reconsider.