Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. I welcome the Finance Committee's report on their inquiry into a legislative budget process. It's provided a really valuable opportunity to reflect on the changes to the budget process over the course of this administration, and it's also demonstrated how the good working between the Welsh Government and the Finance Committee over many years has improved the budget process in Wales. 

We're all familiar with the increases in the fiscal responsibilities of the Senedd over this Senedd term. The most significant of these was the devolution of tax powers, which led to the jointly agreed budget process protocol in 2017. As part of this debate, it's also right that we consider the suitability of the current arrangements, particularly given the way in which these processes have needed to respond to the circumstances that have impacted our budget preparations in recent years. 

Before I respond to the points on legislation, I want to focus on flexibility, because flexibility is an important requirement for a budget process. It's a positive reflection on our existing approach that, despite the unprecedented circumstances, our jointly agreed 2017 protocol has provided us with sufficient flexibility. This has included ensuring that the increased scrutiny period that the protocol introduced—from five weeks to eight weeks—has not been unduly compromised, despite the circumstances that have affected our preparations. 

In contrast, a legislative process introduces additional time constraints, which could impact on flexibility and scrutiny. Given that Wales and Scotland have both faced the same circumstances, I read with interest the assessment of the Scottish legislative budget process and I would argue that our protocol has provided equivalent abilities to respond without the need for legislation. It is right, however, that as we continue the journey of devolution and seek greater fiscal responsibilities we should also consider the potential role of legislation such as a budget bill or a more comprehensive finance Bill.

We're already committed to using legislation where there's a demonstrable need to do so. We're developing tax legislation at the moment to ensure that we have a mechanism for making changes to the Welsh tax Acts at short notice, as required, whilst allowing for proper scrutiny by the Senedd. Any consideration of a legislative budget process also needs to be balanced against the potential disadvantages, and I welcome the Finance Committee's recognition that these risks need to be fully explored to ensure that we don't adversely impact upon our ability to provide funding certainty to partners and to stakeholders.

Alongside scrutiny, I recognise the importance of enabling the Senedd to have an opportunity to influence budget priorities and allocations earlier on in the process. We've already taken a number of steps that have been achieved without the need for legislation, and this includes the agreement to a Plenary debate before the summer recess to influence our early preparations, and I would welcome further discussions on what other improvements can be made to our current approach.

We have also continued to improve transparency by providing a greater level of detail and supporting information. In this context, I welcome the Finance Committee's acknowledgement of the steps that we have taken to publish our tax and borrowing plans and forecasts. We also now publish the chief economist's report; the Welsh tax policy report; the Welsh taxes outlook; the children and young people's budget leaflet; the budget improvement plan; and consolidated written evidence to Senedd scrutiny committees. This is more than is provided in many other national budgets, including countries where they have legislative budget processes, but, of course, we are committed to exploring what more we can do.

The issue of providing multi-year settlements is also something that we've discussed on many occasions. Unfortunately, our ability to provide longer term funding is largely dependent on the UK Government's budget cycle and the extent to which we can provide realistic and sensible planning assumptions given the current fiscal and economic climate. As such, a legislative budget process wouldn't impact on this issue.

So, in summary, today's debate has shown that there are many benefits identified within this report that we can explore taking forward without the need for legislation. However, on the fundamental point of a legislative budget, we do not feel that the additional benefits of undertaking these reforms have yet been demonstrated, but, that said, in recognising the importance of this longer term agenda, we would be open to discussing the option of a review process, such as the Scottish budget process review group. With both Government, Senedd and invited external experts engaged, a review could be undertaken of the benefits and issues of introducing further reforms to our budget process, including the use of legislation.

So, in closing, today's debate has provided an important opportunity to consider how we continue to ensure that our budget process is both transparent and inclusive. Diolch yn fawr.