I'll make announcements on the revenue support grant next week. I understand the points that have been made, and I do certainly understand the pressures facing many rural authorities across the whole country in continuing to deliver excellent services across sometimes very sparsely populated geography. But I will say this to him: I was also sitting in two Valleys council offices last week, where I was told in no uncertain terms, with some very colourful language, that it was Valleys local authorities that had suffered the worst cuts and why this was. 

The impression I get, speaking to people across the whole country, is that there is this sense of, 'The cuts are harsher here than there.' What I will say to people, wherever they happen to live, whether it's in an urban area or a rural area, or north, south, east or west, is that we do have a way of delivering funding to local authorities that I believe is fair. We have met local authorities in two sessions in the last two weeks, in what we call the distribution sub-group and the finance sub-group—there are many of these meetings throughout the year—and I have not heard any request to fundamentally change the formula and change the way of funding.

The finance Secretary spoke at the WLGA council meeting last week and I do not believe that any request was made there to change the way in which we fund local authorities. Presiding Officer, we've had this debate on a number of occasions in this Chamber. I tell the Conservative group that their councillors do not want Conservative policies in Wales; they are delighted to have a Welsh Labour Government delivering support and funding to local authorities that Conservative councils in England could only dream of. So, when I meet Conservative councils, what they tell me is that what they need is a Labour Government.