Thank you. I'm pleased to open the debate on the final budget for 2021-22, in what is the final budget of this administration.

The extraordinary circumstances that have shaped this year's budget preparation are well documented, but I am proud that we have risen to the challenge with a 2021-22 budget aligned with our values. We are an administration that delivers on our promises and stands by our public services as they continue their fight against this pandemic. When I published the draft budget before Christmas, I promised further funding as we better understood the path of the pandemic over the winter months. In the final budget, I am allocating more than £680 million to support Wales's public services over the coming months. This means, together with the early COVID measures we announced in the draft budget, we are allocating all of the COVID funding we received in the UK spending review last November.

This is a Government that is committed to standing by our public services and giving them the funding certainty that they deserve. The package includes more than £630 million for the NHS and local government to help support them support the people of Wales over the next six months. This significant funding boost will support our world-leading vaccination programme so that we can protect as many people as possible as quickly as possible, boost our testing capacity, and boost our highly effective contact tracing programme. 

This also includes an additional £206.6 million for the local government hardship fund, which will support vital social care services, provide homelessness support, and ensure schools adapt to their new ways of working. We continue to recognise the disproportionate impact this pandemic is having on our lives and our communities, and we have allocated a further £10.5 million to extend the discretionary assistance fund, providing support for the most vulnerable people in Wales during these difficult times. We are responding to the ongoing impact on the use of public transport, and providing a further £18.6 million to extend bus support into the second quarter of 2021-22. We recognise the important role employability and skills will play in our recovery. We're investing £16.5 million in apprenticeships to maintain current levels of apprenticeship places in 2021-22.