I'm pleased to contribute to this afternoon's important debate on budget priorities, as we move into the all-important budget-setting phase of the Welsh Government and the budget-scrutinising phase of the Assembly's Finance Committee.

I was pleased to take part in the stakeholder event at the Marine hotel in Aberystwyth—a nice sunny day, as I seem to remember; it seems a world away now. We had a lot of discussion in the previous debate about the views of politicians and the views of Members in this Chamber and chambers like this vis-à-vis the views of the public, so I think those stakeholder events are all-important as a means of getting out there and finding out what people on the ground, in businesses and organisations in the third sector—what their priorities are, so that we, as a committee, can feed back to the Welsh Government and we can try and form a budget that is truly in the interests of all.

I think it became clear, through the course of the event in Aberystwyth, that there was universal agreement that prevention and early intervention are key words and concepts that should be at the heart of budget allocation. Yet, this core idea of prevention and planning ahead on the one hand—too often it was felt that that was being negated, or at least lessened, on the other hand, by the increased pressures on budgets, which public organisations and public bodies across Wales too often feel that they are sinking under—not to use too strong an expression. And those organisations find longer term planning really difficult.

We heard concerning evidence that many local authorities have reached saturation point—that was the word that they used—and cannot absorb any more additional costs. This is leading to cuts in non-statutory services, such as leisure, culture and transport, which can then have a knock-on negative impact on the well-being of the local population. I know that the Minister will have heard many of these concerns from local authorities for a long time; we've heard them on the committee for a considerable length of time. And it's too easy to think, 'Well, they would say that, wouldn't they, because they're at the coalface?' But, nonetheless, when these sorts of public services, local services, are cut, then there are knock-on effects and there are impacts on other budgets, because money has to come from other budgets to fund the non-statutory commitments. And, of course, when things like leisure centres see cuts and other cultural places see cuts, then local well-being can be affected and then the health service and social services have to pick up the consequences.

So, we can end up in a vicious circle, where there's greater pressure on the statutory services, which are at the centre of what the local authorities are providing. And, of course, these services are even more stretched in rural areas. Issues such as rural transport I'm constantly raising in this Chamber. Those issues apply even greater pressures in rural areas across Wales. It was very interesting that shareholders also questioned the affordability of some universal services, such as free prescriptions, which we don't discuss so much in this Chamber anymore, and it's probably become a little bit more a part of the accepted landscape. But when you talk to stakeholders out there, as we did, they are saying that universally provided things like that—yes, there might be a really positive thing that people want to have, but when budgets are stretched and local authorities and public services have to make important decisions, they feel that they have to look across the board at everything, otherwise you see important areas being cut.

The issue of cost neutrality came up time and time again. It's a key issue for the Finance Committee. We're often told by the Welsh Government that new legislation is cost neutral, and often by Members when legislation is coming through. Our stakeholders told us that it is rarely the case in practice, and often there are hidden costs, which we don't see at the time that we're looking at legislation, that are there and that have knock-on effects out there in communities. They wanted the Welsh Government to have a better way of assessing hidden costs that there can be behind legislation and budget decisions.

Brexit was, of course, raised during the session—impossible to avoid at the moment. By the way, for anyone who's read the Finance Committee report, I don't think there is such a thing as a 'new deal' Brexit, nice as that might be. I think stakeholders were actually talking about a 'no deal' Brexit. I think it was a merging of two different concepts there. Maybe it's, I don't know, a new term that's going to enter over the next couple of weeks. But with 'no deal' Brexit, they did feel there needed to be planning into that. No-one we spoke to wanted a 'no deal' Brexit, but they recognised that if that is looming on the horizon, there does have to be some work done to try and mitigate any potential consequences of that.

We know that the UK Government's spending round has resulted in an extra £600 million, or slightly less—I think it was £593 million or £594 million that the Chair said—coming into the Welsh budget, and £18 million extra capital. That's an over 2 per cent increase in real terms, and that is to be welcomed. The UK Government has said that we are turning a corner. I accept it's been a long time and pressures are still out there, but I think what's important to the stakeholders we spoke to and to people across Wales is that the Welsh Government does make sure that that money that's being spent on public services in Wales—the health service, education—does get passed on to the all-important public services, and the front line of public services in Wales, so that we can see the sort of improvements here that people really do want to see.