Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very pleased to speak in this debate today on the final budget, which has changed, of course, from the draft budget that we scrutinised as a committee in the autumn. The final budget does show the consequentials that came from the UK autumn budget, of course, in 2018. It also shows a reduction of £40 million in income tax forecasts, a £2 million reduction in land transactions tax, and a £3 million upward revision in landfill tax revenues.

We welcomed the previous Cabinet Secretary’s early indication during our draft budget scrutiny when he said that local government would be at the front of the queue if additional consequentials came following the UK Government's budget. I'm pleased to see that allocations included within this final budget have met this commitment.

Of course, the powers of this place in this context are still developing and evolving, and the committee will also continue to develop our approach to scrutiny on taxation powers in future. And we will also review what options are available in terms of budget processes available to the Assembly in future years.

There are a number of allocations made in this final budget that won't have been subject to scrutiny, of course, and the Finance Committee has raised this issue with the previous Cabinet Secretary. When financial decisions are made in year, there must be sufficient financial information available. I would urge the new Minister for finance to consider this in the future, and I would also urge my fellow committee members here today to ensure that they consider any changes in allocations in upcoming scrutiny sessions, because financial scrutiny doesn't only need to take place during the formal autumn budget scrutiny.

Finally, I'm also pleased to have received the response of the Government to the committee report on the draft budget. But, unfortunately, this was only received this morning, and, as a result, I haven't had an opportunity to consider the content. I also understand that the policy committees have only received their responses this morning, and whilst I fully appreciate how much work it is for the Government to move from a draft budget to a final budget, it isn't acceptable that these responses have been received so late in the day.

As a committee, we will be reflecting on the budget scrutiny in our meeting next week, and I'll also hope to discuss with the new Minister for finance how we can avoid a situation of this kind in future.