Diolch, Llywydd. This year's Welsh Government draft budget marks an incredibly important step in the devolution process. This is the first year that revenue raised from new Welsh rates of income tax will be included in the Welsh budget, following their introduction in April 2019. However, this momentous step in the devolution process is occurring against the backdrop of the bleakest austerity in Government. Labour has done and will continue to do all that it can do to protect Wales from the worst impacts of these cuts, protecting front-line services. This includes the Supporting People budget, council tax reduction schemes, nurse training bursaries, Flying Start and much more in the face of Brexit and the withdrawal of European funds to Wales. This draft budget is no exception.

Despite the severe pressures on the Welsh Government, it is still delivering more than £500 million extra for our health service, £50 million more for social care, £15 million for schools and £12.5 million to help tackle child poverty. But it is right to underscore how very difficult even the protected budgets of local authorities are, thanks to the UK cuts to Wales, and I will continue to welcome consequentials and prioritisation to local government and their front-line services delivery. Nonetheless, the investment of this Welsh Government is continuing to deliver for the needs of the Welsh people, even though we need further fairer funding to Wales, and I will continue to call for this. I believe that my friend, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, has done remarkable work to deliver such vital support across our public services in such trying circumstances.

For the Conservatives, it is indeed a bit rich to sit in this Chamber and demand more for our public services, whilst their friends in Westminster inflict cuts to our budgets in Wales. It is extraordinary. It does flabbergast me that, week after week, they ask us to do more with far less, and that is hypocrisy in the extreme that does not dry up. The Tories appear to have divorced themselves amicably from their own political choice to support the so-called austerity that their colleagues are making in Westminster, and which they bypass, ignore and glance away from here in Wales.

But I want to focus on the positive investment for Wales that this budget delivers, as well as the extra funding that I've already mentioned. I would like to particularly welcome the £7 million invested in the Valleys regional park. This will provide a vital boost to tourism, attracting more visitors to the south Wales Valleys that we are so proud of, including sites like Cwmcarn forest drive in my own constituency.

To conclude, Llywydd, this budget provides much needed support to our public services, and as we celebrate the seventieth anniversary of our NHS, whose creation the Tories opposed, I believe that Nye Bevan would be proud that in Wales we are investing in it here and now. What makes this more remarkable is that we are achieving this investment despite the fact that the Welsh Government's budget will remain 5 per cent lower in 2019-20 than it was in 2010-11, equivalent to £850 million—vastly less to spend across our public services in real terms.

And despite the Chancellor's insistence, against all evidence, that austerity is over, I will not ever take lectures or lessons from the Tories on our budget while they continue to underfund our public services and our Welsh Government budget. And as they look the other way and as we govern with less, and as they at the same time find £1,000 million to bung to Northern Ireland whilst ignoring the citizens of Wales, I do commend the work of the finance Secretary to deliver a budget that strives in the very hardest of circumstances to meet the needs of all the people of Wales. It is time that the Tories stepped up to the plate and delivered to Wales what they have delivered to Northern Ireland. I live in hope, and I hope for a general election. Thank you.