Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to be able to welcome today's debate from the Welsh Conservatives because I do think that local government is facing its toughest period since devolution in 1999, but it would be to ignore the elephant in the room to thank the Tories for the opportunity to talk about this because it is their austerity agenda, that political choice to starve services of funding, that has led to the situation we find ourselves in today. Nowhere is that duplicity more obvious than in the final point of the Tory motion, calling for a review of the local government funding formula, as though a review of the formula might suddenly increase the quantum available to councils in Wales. It will not. As though the formula isn't under constant review between Welsh Government and the Welsh Local Government Association. It is. As though any independent review would ever recommend moving money away from poorer communities to more affluent, Tory-run councils. How could it possibly?

Even a cursory glance at the reforms that have been introduced by the UK Government over the last eight years will show that the poorest areas of Wales have been hit hardest by those changes. Relative child poverty in Wales is estimated to increase substantially with reforms pushing an extra 50,000 children into poverty by the time they're fully implemented: your party. The latest analysis shows the changes since 2010 have a disproportionately negative impact on the incomes of several protected groups, including disabled people, certain ethnic groups, women, and particularly negative impacts on intersectional groups who experience multiple disadvantage. It simply follows that any local government funding review would have to take that into account.

In contrast, the issues that the Tories often cite about challenges to the councils they run and seek to run, rurality and travel time, for example, have not changed and will not change—[Interruption.]