Yes, the final budget, and quite a few changes since the draft budget. Unfortunately, not sufficient changes from the draft budget, particularly when it comes to funding for local government. As I welcome the new finance Minister to her post, we could point out that it's possible to do things differently when there’s a change of personnel in a post, but it's possibly rather difficult to do that when your predecessor is by now the boss. But certainly, there are weaknesses that will cost us dearly, particularly in the field of ​​local government.

I appreciate the comments of the finance Minister welcoming the discussions that we have had on this budget before today, and I will once again pay tribute to Steffan at this point, because he, as my predecessor as finance spokesperson, laid the foundations for the agreement between ourselves as Plaid Cymru, and the agreement demonstrates its success by what has been presented to us today.

We’ve worked closely with the Government over the past two years, and I certainly speak on behalf of us all on these benches when I tell the Chamber that we are extremely proud of what we have achieved through our agreement that was agreed between Steffan and the current First Minister, the former Finance Secretary, which is £0.5 billion of investments that have allowed us to take forward our manifesto from the back benches. 

They include a great number of things that we're extremely proud of: £40 million for mental health services, further funding for the development of medical training that has led to the establishment of medical education for north Wales, support for businesses during Brexit and post Brexit, the football museum and the contemporary art museum being developed further, and funding for Glan-llyn and Llangrannog—things that will have a great impact on the lives of young people in Wales. And if we can do that in opposition, imagine what we could do in Government.

We will be abstaining on today's budget in order to reflect the agreement that we have made, but the context has changed fundamentally since the agreement. The major change, of course, is that this Government has a working majority by now, and so it is a Government budget without the ability to be defeated by the opposition parties, and we certainly regret very much a number of elements contained within it. The Government still fails to realise the depth of the difficulties of local government. Yes, some additional funding has been given to them, £50 million more since the first budget, but this doesn't come anywhere near what is required. The core grant for local government has been reduced by 22 per cent since 2010, and although, according to the headlines, no local authority is seeing a great decrease in their budget—they say it's 0.53 per cent—that is a barefaced lie, because the cuts are swingeing.

Yes, we do agree with you that we need to point the finger at the cruel Conservative Government in Westminster, and what has been done by their inequitable and unjust policy of austerity. But it was the political choice of the Labour Welsh Government not to make the investment in local government when you had the opportunity to do so in the budget this time. You cannot avoid the blame for not taking that alternative decision that failed to give that support to our councils.

Health has seen an increase of £0.5 billion since the first supplementary budget, but, of course, the health service can't work in a vacuum. We need a well-funded local government that can give the right support to social services in order to ensure that the health service is able to operate in a sustainable fashion, and that is not the situation that we have today.

We have raised these issues time after time. This Government knows that people within its own party feel the same as us. Anthony Hunt, the leader of the WLGA, and the leader of Torfaen, has also expressed concern that the Government has taken the wrong decisions with this budget. And later on today we will vote against the local government settlement, because we don't believe that the right decisions, the decisions that had potential to transform local government, or to take the pressure off them at least, have been made this time. But we will be abstaining on the budget, but this will be the last time.