Can I thank the finance Minister for today's statement? I think it was only last week that I asked the First Minister for an update on the mutual investment model—I think you were sitting in the Chamber at the same time, Minister—so that's certainly efficiency. Leaving aside the usual preamble that features in many Ministers' statements about austerity, there are some very important issues that you've touched upon in your statement. I'd like to touch on a few of those myself.

Firstly, can I welcome your position on the European Investment Bank? The Welsh Conservatives have long been calling on the Welsh Government to make greater use of the bank, and we know that other countries, such as Spain, have long been utilising funding for road and rail schemes and other infrastructure projects. So, my party's role has been to call for more of that EIB investment for a long, long time. We haven't done the same, not just in Wales, but in the UK either. And I think you're right—we do need to push for continued membership, or partnership, or associate partnership, or whatever that might be, with the EIB. Let's not forget that the Republic of Ireland will remain in the European Union and Welsh and UK roads will still be needed to get there—at least I imagine that's how it will work—once we do exit the European Union. So, investment is required in UK roads, as part of a wider European, if not European Union, infrastructure.

Turning to the substantive aspect of your statement: we do, of course, support the use of the mutual investment model for programmes such as completing the dualling of the A465, which you mentioned; the twenty-first century schools programme—again, widely supported—which you mentioned; and also the new Velindre Cancer Centre. So, can you update us on the timescales for these projects, and indeed the timescales for getting the mutual investment models fully in place and finalised?

The monitoring of these projects is going to be all-important, given some of the cases of poor value for money—again, that you alluded to, and the First Minister did last week—of previous PFI projects, which happened over considerable lengths of time, under Governments of different hues, to be honest. I do recognise as well that, before, often, the Welsh Government had an input into those schemes, so monitoring is going to be all-important here, as the First Minister did tell us last week.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the five-case model? It's clearly important that this monitoring is robust, and this sounds impressive on the face of it, but, of course, thinking back to when PFI projects were originally brought in, there were a lot of very, on the face of it, sensible cases made for PFI and the sort of efficiencies those would deliver, and that certainly didn't happen, did it? So, let's make sure that the mutual investment model doesn't suffer from some of the problems that were faced by PFI and that lessons have been learned. 

Also, you mentioned soft services and you mentioned not using money for capital equipment—I don't doubt that you're right in some or many cases, but I'm just wondering is it right to have that blanket opposition to using mutual investment money for all capital equipment, for instance. You might well be able to make the case for that, but I'm just concerned that we might end up with a situation where the MIM model is actually so inflexible that perhaps in the future—if we want to futureproof, this is important—certain schemes might not be viable that otherwise might. So, I'd be grateful for some clarity on that. 

Could you tell us a little bit more about your efforts to improve transparency? You say that the Government's shareholding in each scheme will be managed by a director appointed by Ministers. What process is going to be used to select those directors and how transparent will those processes be?

But thank you for your statement. I think there's wide support across this Chamber for the mutual investment model, and I welcome what you've had to say today. I'd be grateful if you could give us some answers to some of the questions raised.