Notwithstanding that, you have repeatedly and, I believe, sincerely committed yourself to driving forward preventative approaches to health and care in Wales. Yesterday's local government provisional settlement figures show an overall 1 per cent reduction for local government, with every local authority in north Wales seeing a reduction, although seven in south Wales saw a standstill or increase, and with NHS funding, however, going up 7 per cent, rather than seeing how we could budget smarter in order to deliver more through early intervention and prevention. How, therefore, do you respond to the statements in the letter from the Welsh Local Government Association, issued to us all yesterday, signed by the WLGA leaders from all parties, in which the WLGA Conservative group leader, Peter Fox, said,

'With £370 million new monies arriving from Westminster, an imaginative approach to funding preventative services to keep people out of hospitals was needed. Instead, the Welsh Government has given the NHS a seven per cent increase and cut council budgets for the eighth year in succession.'

We're not advocating a cut in NHS funding; what we're advocating is imaginative, smart, preventative budgets that keep the pressure off health services by the two working better together.