Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to be speaking in this debate today on the Finance Committee’s inquiry into the Welsh Government’s capital funding sources. As Chair of the committee, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to this inquiry and to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd also for her response to our report. The committee welcomes the fact that the Minister, in her response, has accepted all of the recommendations in the report.

Under the Wales Act 2017 and accompanying fiscal framework, Welsh Government currently has an annual capital borrowing limit of £150 million. In June last year, the Minister announced a capital investment package of £85 million, then on 4 November, she announced a further funding of £130 million for key capital investments, and that included £53 million to support businesses in the face of Brexit and to provide extra investment for future developments, such as housing and active travel. Accompanying this announcement was the publication of an updated version of the Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan.

Now, the annual report by Welsh Ministers about the implementation and operation of Part 2—finance—of the Wales Act 2014 was published in December last year. It makes reference to the Welsh Government’s capital borrowing and it states—and I quote—that,

'The take-up of planned borrowing will be carefully considered during each budget period and will only be used when all available conventional, cheaper sources of capital financing have been exhausted.'

The Finance Committee undertook this inquiry to establish how the Welsh Government is using the funding streams available to it, the effectiveness of Welsh Government’s funding strategy and the benefits and risks of specific funding models, in particular the mutual investment model, or the MIM, as we know it through the English acronym.