So, while we thought £52 million was quite a lot for the Welsh Government to spend on Cardiff Airport, compared to the KPMG estimate of a valuation of £25 million to £35 million, it suggests that, actually, the £52 million compares relatively well to the £40 million, when Cardiff had 1 million passengers compared to the 130,000 there, but whether that's the right valuation I don't know. But I would note, in response to Carwyn's comment, the response of five Labour council leaders to the Conservative mayor buying the airport in Durham Tees: they warned that the mayor's plans to sink money into the struggling airport would create a black hole in investment plans.

I hope we'll look at these issues on merit, rather than simply from party political allegiance. I think the important point I'd like to make, in terms of cash going from Government into the airport—yes, if it's a black hole and it's consistently taking cash and there's no prospect of it generating cash to pay back down the road, then that wouldn't be a good idea. But, at the margin, what they are doing with the additional money? When I met with Roger Lewis and others, when he was chairing the airport, I think they made a case that at least some of the extra cash they were looking for was going to get a payback within a year or so, in terms of extra retail units and improving terminals. If that payback is the case, then it would be sensible to put the cash into it, and, given that the Government is the shareholder, for now that duty falls to Welsh Government.

We heard, as Nick said, relatively limited mentions of austerity from the finance Minister, at least compared to previous contributions. However, she did emphasise—and her comparison was one, again, back to 2010-11, and how we, she says, have £300 million less in real terms now than then. I just think it's more helpful, in scrutinising and considering the budget, and deciding what we think of it, to compare what the budget is for the year ahead compared to the previous year. What are you actually doing in this budget? For that, I think the important number is that £593 million increase in spending, or 2.3 per cent in real terms. 

I think the finance Minister was a little unfair to criticise the UK Government for its chaotic approach to the budget timing, since I think the timing of that 12 December general election, or the necessity of having it, was not entirely in the UK Government's hands. Opposition Members in Westminster had at least as much responsibility for those timings and the impact they had on the budget process.

However, I would like to commend the Welsh Government on its pragmatic response to those timing difficulties, its, I think, sensible liaison with the Finance Committee in terms of scrutiny and the debates we've had here. I think it's worked okay, in light of the challenges that we had. Certainly, compared to the Scottish Government, and the huge problems they've had, I think we have acquitted ourselves well in terms of those timings working together.

I also think, in that context, we, on the Finance Committee, are looking to give greater consideration to the budget process, stepping back from the specifics of this budget to ask if this is the right process. The thing that I've become most concerned about, about the process and how it works, being on the Finance Committee on and off over the years, is that the draft budget, and then the scrutiny and the debates and the stakeholder meetings, I think possibly lead to heightened expectations from stakeholders, interest groups, those who are funded—AMs here, to an extent—of the prospect for change. And I wait to see what happens in the finance Minister's final budget to see what is changed then.

But, if the scrutiny process is to have any value—. I'd just give one example of an area where I think there's been cross-party consensus, and that is bus services. Yes, it's welcome to have this £29 million of capital funding for electric buses, and I'm sure that those who use them and those in city centres who benefit, perhaps, from reduced air pollution because of them will appreciate that spending, but we're not clear as to whether that is the best value of spending compared to other projects, to the extent that the Minister is focused on climate change objectives. Obviously, there are other benefits to these as well, but are those benefits greater than how that money of £29 million could be used elsewhere to support bus services?

Myself and the Member for Blaenau Gwent both brought this up repeatedly in committee: that, actually, if in Ebbw Vale you've seen the frequency of the service halved, whether it's an electric bus is much less important than whether there is a bus. I just hope the Minister, if she is listening to the scrutiny—and it's come from Plaid, us, Conservatives and from her own back benches. A real-terms cut in the subsidy for bus services on a revenue basis does not seem to gel well with her purported climate change objectives. And I just would, again, encourage her to reconsider that aspect prior to the final budget. 

I also wonder, given we've had this long period of relative austerity and we've come out of it—yet the approach of Welsh Government is largely to hand out fairly similar increases across the board. Some areas have particularly benefited; I see the Minister for the international side in her seat, and that's a significant percentage although quite small as an absolute-terms increase, and I hope she won't go overboard with opening too many offices across every EU country with the extra cash, but that's a big area of increase.

But I just wonder, in terms of that core decision—the NHS versus local government—similar increases to both—. Yet, what has happened in dealing with austerity in Wales is there have been relative cuts in the health service compared to England, yet local government has been protected much more than has been the case for English local government. The Welsh Government used to tell us that we needed structural change in local government, and I agree with them. Why do we have so many councils, 22 unitary councils, much smaller generally than those in England that are delivering unitary services? There's a desperate need to try and encourage regional working to mitigate some of those inefficiencies. But ultimately, would it not be better if we had fewer and larger councils that were better suited to carrying out those tasks? 

I will give way to someone who will disagree strongly with what I've just said—Mike.