I thank Mark Reckless. I'm not going to be tempted to a debate on austerity, wearing a more political hat, and I'll just deal specifically with his questions.

I think there's a slight confusion here, if I may be clear around it. The overall budget that the Finance Committee considered, presented by the Commission, included that sum of money for the remuneration board, in effect. As there is now less—well, put it this way—as there is now more flexibility within those resources for individual Members to spend what would have been an underspend held, if you like, in common by the Commission, that is now broken up into 60 different underspends that we can then use and spend ourselves.

So, in his general charge, which the Finance Committee agrees with, and did agree with—that the Commission should behave like the rest of the public sector in Wales—we now need to add 60 Assembly Members who also need to behave like the rest of the public sector in Wales. And I hope that no Assembly Member thinks that simply because they have more flexibility over their spending, it means they have to spend up to the limit, because they will be asked to justify that, and will be rightly asked to do so. 

But I do think—and this is what's changed since he was a member of the committee, and since we've published the report, received a further response from the Commission and a response in light of the remuneration board—I do see it fair that we take out that remuneration board when we judge whether the Commission has increased in line with the Welsh block or not, because the Commission cannot now either use that money or control that money. It is in, as I say, 60 different pairs of hands. The Commission has no decision making around the overall sum—that is for the remuneration board to decide. And so I think it is reasonable that we take that bit out and then challenge the rest of the budget precisely in the way he suggests, precisely in the way that the Finance Committee asked for, and I don't see the Finance Committee being less rigorous on that aspect than it has been in the past.

In that regard, I go back to what I said in the statement: we would expect the Commission to act like the rest of the public sector, to take on board austerity, to know that we're all answerable, not only for those individual spending decisions, but for the overall spending decisions of the Assembly. There are potential big projects on the horizon and the Commission will need to consider how that best fits its approach, as a public body, like that. So, I don't think we've resiled from that, but I think we've been reasonable in the changes that have emerged since the report was first published.