It is true. In fact, the current First Minister when he was finance Minister acknowledged that, he did. One thing we all know is: Wales, if it went independent, would be seriously underfunded. We achieve far greater results by being part of the United Kingdom, as the population shows time and time again. [Interruption.]—I've taken one intervention, I'd like to make some progress in my contribution. 

What is really critical to understand here is that, obviously, some of these funding issues—. We do know that there's less money in the pot overall, because when the Government came in in 2010, the Chief Secretary of the Labour Government left a note that said all the money had gone. So, there were no magic money trees when we came in. We kept a growing economy with record employment rates and investment in public services. But what happened here in the Assembly was quite clear, the Government has bailed out the health boards time and time again and has not had budget responsibility within the health boards, and yet education and other key public services have suffered because of that. It's quite clear, the three-year budget rule that was brought in by the finance Secretary when he was finance Secretary was to balance the budgets, and yet, each time, education has suffered at the hands of the inexperience and incompetence, I would suggest, in some of the health boards in managing their own budget pressures. That's what this Government needs to get a handle on. 

It is a fact that many, many school environments are so different the length and breadth of Wales, and that is a challenge for local authorities to manage. I can remember visiting Roath primary school in my own region, where the headteacher was telling me in excess of 30 languages are spoken in that primary school. You can then go to a small rural primary school where, obviously, the roll might only be 20, 30, or 40 even, and yet you're trying to deliver a curriculum and offer life chances to those young people. So, we have to reflect on the fact that the variety of schools across Wales demands different levels of funding. I don't underestimate those challenges. 

But, when an union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, come forward and highlight the figures that they highlighted recently, that surely warrants and merits a debate, and that's what we're having here this afternoon. When you look at the figures of the retained money, £450-odd million not making it to the classroom, we as politicians surely have to ask the question, 'Why that total?' Now, I fully accept that certain services are best delivered by the local authority rather than broken up, transport's a good example of that, it is, then, especially in a rural location. Should a small school of 30 or 40 pupils be dealing with trying to tie up transport? Clearly, they wouldn't have the presence in the market to get the best deal possible. But £450 million is a fair chunk of money out of a £2.5 billion budget that's retained by local authorities. Surely, there is more pressure that can be brought to bear to bring those numbers down, especially when you have some authorities such as Cardiff, for example, which is retaining 10 per cent of the money before it hits the classroom as opposed to other local authorities, the worst performing ones, I would suggest, which are retaining maybe 25 per cent or 30 per cent of that money. That is a real debate to had, and I remember the predecessor to the current Minister, Leighton Andrews, obviously bringing a lot of pressure to bear on that, and some success was had.

So, this debate is about actually trying to address the concerns that we as Assembly Members time and time again face with our constituents, trying to understand the hypothecated, the unhypothecated, why is that teacher being laid off, why hasn't that school room been updated, why haven't the computer programmes been updated, et cetera, when we're told time and time again there are supposedly record sums of money going in. We know there's a new curriculum coming before us in 2021 as well, which will require investment, but, what we do know over 20 years of Labour-led Government here in Wales, regrettably, on the international league table, we have failed to perform as a country. One of the key indicators surely has to be the ability to deliver money into the classrooms to increase teacher participation levels in good-quality training courses and, above all, get an environment that our learners can thrive in. That is something that we all share—that aspiration for our schools here in Wales. Regrettably, because of the mismanagement from Welsh Labour in Government—[Interruption.] The clock is ticking. Because of the mismanagement of Labour in government, I go back to my opening remark, we have seen time and time again health boards bailed out when they've gone massively over budget, and local education authorities having to pull back their spending because they've been robbed of any additional money that might come in consequentials that come down from the M4. So, this debate is timely, it is pertinent, and I hope the Assembly will support it.