I will turn to this budget at the moment and how it impacts on my constituency. I look over the last five years in my patch, and there isn't a single town or community that hasn't had a new school built that is affecting its primary or secondary school children, or a college that has had investment. It's the biggest investment since the 1960s in the infrastructure of our schools and colleges, and that has come under this Welsh Government. As we look forward, we have commitments there of over £50 million in terms of the band B twenty-first century schools, going forward from 2021 to 2026. I know that there will be more schools. All of those Victorian schools, most of which have now gone, will be transformed into twenty-first century learning hubs for our young people.

I look at the investment in active travel, Pencoed technology park—£2.5 million—the nearly £50 million that has been brought into this part of the Cardiff city region, into Bridgend and Ogmore. We are hoping for a very good announcement within the next few days that will allow an area that I know the Minister knows very well from her background, the Ewenny strategic site—we are hoping for good news on that as part of city deal funding and Welsh Government funding, to allow the brownfield remediation of that, so that we can get on with a big, large-scale development. This is despite the challenges that we have.

If you look at Maesteg Town Hall, there's the £7 million investment in there. I know that we are losing the European money now, and the UK shared prosperity fund is nowhere to be seen at the moment, but we have European money and Welsh Government money coming in to transform that iconic building, which was built with the miners' pennies from this town, like many across the Valleys areas. It will now be transformed as an iconic venue, like what they did with Gwyn Hall in Neath, for the twenty-first century. We have extra-care housing built to the tune of £3 million in Tondu and in the top of the Llynfi valley, providing not just residential care for older people, but wraparound elderly care, including bungalows, where people can move from apartments into bungalows outside, and so on, as their condition changes.

That's why I think that it's worth reflecting, as we look at this budget, going forward, on what we have been able to achieve in these five years, despite, I have to say, the long tail end of austerity. I think that it has been remarkable. It has been well prioritised. It's been on our children, it's been on our elderly, it's been on jobs and skills and getting people into jobs as well, with construction of homes and schools and highways development and so on.

Let me just touch on some of the aspects of this and why I will be supporting this today. I thoroughly welcome the fact that we have managed to find over £630 million for our NHS and for local government, not just in response to the pandemic, but the wider strains they're under. At some point, even with the challenges, a future Government here in Wales is going to have to deal with that long tail of austerity, which has hollowed out parts of local government. They have done incredible work, and our NHS and carers, under great pressure. But, that additional £630 million is very welcome indeed.

I hugely welcome the additional investment of £220 million within house building and the schools programme. I know that, in my area, I have walked into the homes that are being built with that money. I have touched the walls, seen the electrics being put in, seen the people sitting there, building these homes. That’s what this money is all about. It's not just bricks and mortar. It's people in jobs at a time when we need it absolutely the most. These are Welsh Government priorities. But, I have to say as well, with respect to everybody else in the Cabinet, they are Welsh Labour priorities in action as well, and I applaud that entirely.

I simply want to say that it is going to be difficult for the next Government coming in. It really will be, not least because the UK Government seems to be taking away much of the support that we have seen previously from EU funding. The UK shared prosperity fund and so on is still nowhere to be seen whatsoever. It looks like pork-barrel politics to me. But, we need to continue on this set of priorities. Ultimately, it is about looking after the communities that need it the most, and keeping people in jobs, now and into the long-term future as well, and giving people hope. That's what this budget does. It gives people hope, even in the most challenging of times. So, well done, Minister, and thank you for what you've done, not just now, but in the years gone by as well.