I have a number of comments to make on the second supplementary budget. It's always a disadvantage to follow Llyr Gryffudd and Nick Ramsay, who serve on the same committee as I do, because an awful lot of the things I was going to say, they've already said, and I don't think people want to hear them a second time.

I'd like to reply to something Adam Price said about small and medium-sized enterprises—something I've been making a fuss about for a very long time. One of the weaknesses we have in small and medium-sized enterprises in Wales is that when they become medium sized, far too many of them sell out to much larger companies. And we've seen in the last 12 months Alun Griffiths (Contractors) Ltd being taken over by a much larger company and in Carmarthenshire, we saw Princes Gate being taken over by a much larger company. So, we grow to medium sized, then somebody else takes over and that's a problem with our economy that really does need addressing.

The other thing is—we talk about these hundreds of millions of pounds as if they're trivial sums. They're not trivial sums; they're of great importance to the Welsh economy. If we look at the increase in additional financing from the UK Government—a consequential of £155.3 million and the extra £138.6 million for health and social services, which I'm going to go through in some detail, because I want to raise something at the end of it: £47.3 million in NHS pay; £24 million in doctors and dentists' pay; Welsh risk pool—£30 million; additional funding to develop and implement sustainable plans for orthopaedics and ophthalmology at Betsi Cadwaladr university health board—£24 million; winter pressures funding for social services—£4 million; and transitional costs associated with the Bridgend boundary change—£3 million. So, can, perhaps, people give some thought to the fact that merging things is not cost-neutral and there are certain expenses to it? People seem to talk as if mergers will save lots of money. If that were the case, this would be cost-neutral, because it's only moving from one health board to another. It hasn't been cost-neutral; there are further costs in change.

The point I want to make, though, is that only £4 million of the health and social services budget has gone to social services, or just over £1 for everyone living in Wales. To be added to that, £15.6 million for teachers' development support, including £8.1 million to fund additional costs of the teachers' pay award from nursery to year 11; £7.5 million to help local authorities meet educational cost pressures; £50 million for the first installment of a £100 million three-year capital package; £20 million for the first installment of a three-year £60 million public highways refurbishment package; and £26 million for the local transport fund. So, add all those up now; local government has again come out of the second supplementary budget badly. Local government comes out of most budgets badly. We talk about the foundation economy; everybody talks about the foundation and how important it is. There is nothing more important in a foundation society than local government services supported by local government expenditure. I think that we really do need to get back to thinking that if we want to improve our economy, getting better educated people will help us, improving the number of people with skills will help us, and undertaking a huge number of things that local authorities do, including improving the transport links, will help us. 

On the M4, I share the committee's concern about the level of funding being committed to a project where so much uncertainty exists, and I support the recommendation that the Welsh Government provide additional details on the planning for the M4. Would the additional funding have been needed had a decision been made at the time it was originally intended in December? And how much additional money may need to be committed before a decision is taken? It appears to me that not taking a timely decision is an expensive option, and costs appear to be incurred if the final decision is to not proceed. My position has not changed. I'm a convincible sceptic—although, for the record, no attempt has been made to convince me that the M4 is a good idea.

On the student loan fund, I'm going to be told this is non-Welsh Government cash, it's non-fiscal reserves; it doesn't really matter, because it doesn't affect the Welsh Government's ability to spend. What I will say is this: this is coming out of the Westminster total expenditure, so every time money comes out of this, then we end up with less money being available for our Barnettised proportion of the amount coming out. I mean, we see every year that this increases. I make a fuss about it every year; the First Minister will remember from when he was finance Minister. Although it's non-cash, it does have that effect. And I say it happens every year; the student loan programme is not working. People need to come to grips with that. At some stage, it's going to have to be written off, or written down or whatever way the accountants want to do it, but somebody's going to have to do something about it. It's becoming increasingly costly to the Westminster Treasury, and it's almost like having another Trident.

Finally, I think we do need a discussion at some stage on transaction capital, which gets mentioned in every budget—normally fleetingly—and I think we do need to discuss where it's going, how it's being spent, and how it's going to be paid back.