Thank you for this opportunity to reply and to make a few comments about the Plaid Cymru amendments. I agree with the content of the motion, and it’s our intention to strengthen the motion with our amendments today. In terms of the Government amendment, we are going to hear from the Minister, without doubt, about the effect of the austerity policies of the Conservative Government, and, before that, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government in Westminster, and, of course, I agree entirely. I can't forgive the swingeing cuts that have put such pressure on public services for almost a decade now. It’s ideology that’s driven those cuts, we know, and, as we’ll be discussing in another debate later on this afternoon, it’s the poorest who suffer, but we’re talking here about what the Welsh Government has chosen to do with the budget that it has. Yes, the budget has been under pressure over the years, but this year, against a background of a small increase in the total funding available for 2019-20, local government continues to be a very low priority for the Labour Welsh Government. Last week, of course, we had the announcement from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance that there was some additional funding that would be allocated to councils in Wales, as compared to the draft budget, and, of course, every penny helps, but we do have to ask why it’s taken a consequential from the UK budget for the Welsh Government to give those crumbs to these councils.

Now, we have the figures; the draft budget for Welsh Government shows an increase of 2.4 per cent in the revenue expenditure for 2019-20, but as that funding increased—not by much, but it is an increase—we saw a cut of 1.9 per cent in the local government budget. That’s a political choice, namely, that decision to cut; not something where there was no choice but to do so. It’s Labour austerity.