I think it's important that we start our conversations about the budgets right at the beginning of the process, rather than the legislature responding to the Government's proposals. The conversations that we've started to have, listening to people, in this case in Aberystwyth, were part of that attempt to ensure that we changed the way in which—we don't simply scrutinise budgets in the sense of scrutinising individual budget lines and individual spending decisions, but we look at the shape of a budget and we seek to influence the shape and priorities of a budget. I think, sometimes, as a Member, I've spent far too much time trying to catch out a Minister on a particular spending decision, rather than looking at the policy imperative and the policy ambition of that spending and then to look at how the Minister will then account for meeting or not meeting their priorities. So, I hope, as we move towards a legislative budget process over the coming years, we will be able to ensure that we hold more of these debates and we start the budget process with a debate of this sort, where Members here determine and inform the Government of their priorities, and then the Government, in publishing their budget, are able to respond to these debates and to the priorities that Members here and members of the public have actually identified.

Now, in doing so, and we had this conversation in Aberystwyth, the temptation, of course, is to list the whole range of governmental activities and, in different ways, to define all of those different activities as a priority. Some speeches we hear here on Wednesday afternoons certainly achieve that, and a good case, of course, can be made for much of Government spending at all times. So, I will resist the temptation to give our Minister this afternoon a list of a 1,000 different priorities, and try to limit myself to three priorities that I believe are important for us to consider over the coming weeks and months.

For me, the key priority is that of education. I spoke about this—and perhaps members of the Government will remember this—as a Minister last year. I was very, very clear that the public service I felt that we need to really focus upon in future years is that of education, and particularly schools. Schools have done great things over the last few years, and we've seen a fantastic improvement in standards and results. But we've also seen the pressures that schools and teachers, teaching assistants and others are under. The whole of the education community is achieving fantastic achievements, but we are, I believe, in a position whereby we need to ensure that schools are seem to be a priority.

I hope within this—and I will, acting Deputy Presiding Officer, ensure that my interest in this matter is on the record; my son receives additional learning needs education—I do believe that we need to ensure that, in implementing the additional learning needs statutory framework, we provide additional funding for additional learning needs education, which isn't done at the moment. I believe both the additional funding to education and the additional learning needs education should be provided by way of a direct grant into the education budget, or delivered through the pupil development grant to ensure that additional funding reaches schools with a higher population receiving free school meals. I believe it's important it's done through a direct grant through the education department, because I believe it's important that we ensure that this money is directed directly to the front line.

The second priority would be that of public transport. Members have already identified public transport as one of the key priorities that is quite often overlooked in some of these debates. Few weeks go by in my advice surgeries in Blaenau Gwent where people do not explain to me the difficulties that a lack of bus services, for example, mean for them in their daily lives—the impact it has on town centres, the impacts it has on people reaching public services, the impact it has on people being able to shop or socialise. If we are serious about cohesion and social justice in our communities, then access to an effective system of public transport has to be at the heart of that. It is clear to me that the bus services at the moment are simply collapsing in large parts of the country, and we need to identify that.

The third priority, in no direct order, is that of—[Interruption.] I think we're running out of time, sorry. But the final area that I wish to identify is that of preventative spending. We've seen some fantastic protests over the last week, fantastic activism from young people talking about the impact of climate change. I believe that we need to be able to fund action on climate change, decarbonisation of the economy and public service systems. We also discussed during health questions the impact of drug abuse on people, and young people particularly, and I believe that we do need to look at the services that are delivered specifically for young people. I don't believe that the Welsh Government does enough to learn from other countries and other territories where there are preventative services in place that are already delivering some significant advances and protections for young people, and providing greater opportunities for them. But climate change, of course, will be, I believe, the defining issue of our time. It'll be the defining political challenge that we face. It'll be one of those areas that people will look back on and look at Governments and look at legislators and ask the question, 'What did you do? You knew there was a crisis facing us. What did you do to face up to that crisis?' And I don't believe we can agree any budget in this place that does not include a significant investment in climate change and in addressing the causes of climate change.