The evidence is clear and unambiguous: over £1 billion has been wasted by successive Welsh Labour Governments in the past decade. It makes no odds whether they're joined at the hip with Plaid Cymru or the Liberal Democrats—the waste goes on and on.

As I will demonstrate during this contribution, too many projects, policies and initiatives struggle—and I'm struggling, sorry, with my autocue here—to define clear objectives or agree outcomes, and even those that do are seldom subjected to the rigorous scrutiny that the use of the taxpayer's pound demands. 

Even worse, Llywydd—even worse—is that so many of the projects with potential—the ones that started as pilots—crash and burn, because, once the initial funding runs out, there's no-one with funds prepared to adopt and carry the project forward. So, this Labour Government is forever reinventing the wheel, like a hamster going round and round, ever busier but with no destination.

I have read endless committee reports, Wales Audit Office reports, health board reports, external organisation reports, third sector reports, think tank and research reports. Again and again, the same themes emerge: lack of capacity, lack of capability, lack of sustainability, lack of consistency, lack of focus, lack of objectives, lack of scrutiny, lack of value for money. The theme goes on and on and rather like the theme in Titanic, and, like the Titanic, this Government is holed below the waterline, and the taxpayer's pound is sinking into the abyss.

The passion I and my colleagues have to raise the game in Wales to ensure there is a deep sense of fiscal responsibility is why I'm rejecting most of the amendments before us; the Government's because it is utterly pointless and has no shame, no recognition of the taxpayer's pound they've consistently wasted, and no sense of responsibility—it's always somebody else's fault—Gareth Bennett's amendment because we don't do ostrich—move on, Gareth, the times have. Neil McEvoy's amendment I have some sympathy with, but I would need to be convinced that pushing everything through local authorities is the answer.

I will accept Caroline Jones's amendment. Trust is low, and I think the waste of money the public sees—the overspends, the lack of responsibility—has contributed to people in Wales giving up and not participating. Would you trust anyone who wasted £1 billion of your money? We've all heard of the usual suspects: £221 million on uncompetitive enterprise zones; over £9 million on the flawed initial funding for the Circuit of Wales; almost £100 million on delays and overspend on the Heads of the Valleys road; £157 million—gosh, that number's ingrained in our hearts, isn't it—on the M4 relief road inquiry; over £100 million just propping up Cardiff Airport.

But, as ever, there are devils to be found in the detail. There are lesser known screw-ups where there were no clear objectives, where there was no real capacity to scale up success, where there was no commitment to long-term sustainability, where the projects that were failing were not terminated promptly enough, where scrutiny was ad hoc or non-existent, or not reviewed by people with the authority or the guts to make the hard decisions.

An example of sheer fiscal incompetence can be found in the June 2020 Audit Wales report on Labour's rural development grant scheme. The report found that £53 million of grants were made without ensuring value for money. And I quote the Wales Audit Office report: out of £598 million already provided under the scheme,

'the Welsh Government granted £68 million through "direct applications". In this process, officials invited known individuals or organisations to apply without any competition.'

In short, the auditor general found that key aspects of the design, operation and oversight of the Welsh Government's controls over the programme were not effective enough to secure value for money. In other words, the Welsh Government granted funds without competition, did not document why applicants were selected and made individual grant awards without demonstrating sufficient consideration for value for money. If that were not careless enough with the taxpayer's pound, the Labour Government just handed out funds to existing projects without checking if they were successful. There was no meaningful programme and project oversight.

Let me turn from the Wales Audit Office to examples from the Senedd's Public Accounts Committee. The Public Accounts Committee published two reports over the course of this term highlighting concerns with the accounts of Natural Resources Wales. Seven years ago, the creation of NRW through the merger of the environment agency, countryside council and the forestry commission, was heralded as a way of providing a more accountable, streamlined and efficient way of managing and safeguarding the nation's environment and natural resources. Yet the reports by PAC have highlighted that NRW have failed to deliver on these goals.