Dirprwy Lywydd, we have done this, and more, at a time when our conventional capital budget will be 20 per cent lower in real terms by the end of the decade than it was in 2009-10. And all of this just at the point in the economic cycle when the UK Government should have stepped up and not shied back from investing in the future. Here in Wales, in the six years since the WIIP was first published, we have invested £9 billion of Welsh Government capital funding, and developed new ways of drawing in investment from elsewhere, to deliver ambitious projects, which deliver lasting benefits for the people of Wales.

Now, Dirprwy Lywydd, a great deal has changed since that first WIIP was published in 2012. Back then, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, promised that austerity would be over by 2015. Now, it extends to 2025. We have had the European Union referendum, and the decision to leave the European Union. The impact of the uncertainty that this has created must help explain why, at a time when economies across the eurozone are growing at their fastest rate for a decade, growth across the UK is faltering, and is at its weakest since 2012.

Dirprwy Lywydd, that is the background against which our mid-point review of the Wales infrastructure investment plan is to be published today. The review reflects on the experience of the past six years, where we can see progress, and where we can draw lessons for the future. It takes account of the many changes—some of which I've just identified—that have occurred over the lifetime of the plan so far, and it sets out our investment priorities for the remaining period of the plan, aligning it with the aims and goals of 'Prosperity for All' and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and setting the Welsh Government’s spend more directly in the context of the investment that others plan to make in Wales.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we have ambitious plans to invest further in Welsh infrastructure, with plans already set out to invest an additional £6.5 billion worth of capital in our priorities between now and 2020-21. And today, I can set out a new capital funding package of £266 million to support the delivery of Government priorities over the next three years. Amongst other objectives, these investments are strongly aligned to support the work of my Cabinet colleague Lesley Griffiths in the vital field of carbon reduction.

The new funding allocations include: £60 million over three years to accelerate the creation of active travel routes to connect residential areas, work, education sites and services; over £60 million over the next three years for the NHS, for the all-Wales capital programme; £31.5 million over three years for the next generation access broadband phase 2; £25 million over three years for the new Tech Valleys programme; and £15 million over two years to fund a pilot, as part of the ministerial taskforce for the south Wales Valleys, to ensure that schools in the area become community hubs and provide community learning centres with extended services. The mid-point review also includes an up-to-date pipeline of Welsh Government, local authority and private sector investments. It provides the details of more than 350 schemes with a value of around £42 billion, including this Government’s own flagship commitments.

Llywydd, as members of the Finance Committee will know, my principle has always been to exhaust the use of the least expensive forms of capital before using other more expensive sources. The plan, therefore, relies on our efforts to begin with to commit the vast bulk of our conventional capital, well in advance of spend, then to move on to deploy every pound of capital available to us through the regional development funds from which Wales benefits as a result of our membership of the European Union—that amounts to over £720 million in additional investment—then to make full use of the £1 billion in borrowing powers now available to us, and then to go on supporting additional borrowing for investment by our local authorities and our housing associations. 

And because, even when we have pushed at the limits of all these possibilities, we still have vitally important public purposes that could otherwise not be afforded, we have devised our own mutual investment model, building from the Scottish Government’s not-for-profit schemes, to find a way to fund the new Velindre cancer hospital for south Wales, to complete the dualling of the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, and to enable us to accelerate band B of our twenty-first century schools and education programme. And, Dirprwy Lywydd, I can announce today the latest development in this area, because in line with the provisions in the Government of Wales Act 2006, agreement has now been secured with the UK Government that it will bring forward legislation to enable Welsh Ministers to issue bonds for capital investment expenditure, providing the Welsh Government with a further set of borrowing levers in the future.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we are in the process of establishing a national infrastructure commission for Wales, and later this afternoon the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs will make a statement about our preferred option for our new land use plan, the national development framework. Together, these will provide a strategic picture of our national and regional infrastructure needs, and help us ensure our investments are aligned and targeted to where they can have maximum impact in the face of continuing austerity.