We also recognise the need to look to the longer term to ensure that we leave behind us a sustainable Wales for future generations. We have acted now to address the urgent need to respond to the climate and nature emergency. Our preparations have been guided by supporting Wales's path to recovery, ensuring that a stronger Wales emerges from the pandemic, and one that continues to value equality. Our public services are an integral part of this, and this is reflected in the additional revenue funding we are investing: £1.3 billion for the NHS, £60 million specific grant funding to support social care and other essential services, and £743 million for local government. I welcome the recognition that this draft budget has provided certainty to the wider public sector, and the acknowledgment of our engagement with partners. Alongside our support for the public sector, we will also continue to support the economy and businesses with direct investment of £160 million to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, and with investment in public transport, town centres and digital infrastructure.

This budget also aims to deliver a fairer Wales, and our investment of an additional £60 million in childcare, almost £65 million in education recovery and reform, and £90 million in free school meals, on top of already significant investments in this area, shows our commitment to ensuring that no-one is left behind. Also, in response to the cost-of-living crisis, driven by a rate of inflation not seen for over a decade, this budget has considered the impacts on those most vulnerable. We have acted by including schemes like our basic income pilot and bolstering the discretionary assistant fund. We have also called on the UK Government to use all its levers to respond to the crisis, recognising that the levers that can have the greatest impact on welfare and energy are non-devolved. But we won't be complacent in our own response to help those most impacted by the crisis. I intend shortly to announce a package of measures for 2021-22 and 2022-23 targeted at where the greatest difference can be made to the people of Wales.

The climate and nature emergency demands urgent and radical action, the kind that guided the decision to create a new ministry for climate change and the kind that led to the decision to undertake a zero-based review of all of our capital budgets. In response, we have produced a new 10-year Wales infrastructure and investment strategy and a three-year investment finance plan, which aligns £8 billion of funding to tackling the climate and nature emergency. All investments in the plan must consider the carbon impact of their activities. At the heart of this plan is £1.8 billion of capital funding that invests in both the climate and nature emergencies, and this includes investment in the national forest, biodiversity and green spaces, energy generation and decarbonisation. In maximising our available capital funding, I will also be outlining further financial transactions capital allocations within our final budget, aligned to our priorities. The complex mechanisms in place by the UK Government to manage our own profile made it impossible to deliver a credible plan for the deployment of financial transactions capital earlier. 

Turning to points raised in scrutiny, I welcome the recognition of the positive steps that we're taking on improving budget and tax processes through our budget improvement plan. I look forward to engaging with the Finance Committee and wider Senedd colleagues on this important work as we move forward. I believe there's a real opportunity for us to work together to put Wales at the forefront of these reforms, both in the UK context and internationally. I also welcome the recognition of the extent to which the UK Government's actions have impacted on our plans.

The challenging front-loaded budget settlement from the UK Government's multi-year spending round, particularly in respect of capital, failed to address the significant concerns facing Wales. The lack of ongoing support for COVID from the UK Government, its failure to provide a credible plan to replace EU funding, and the dismissal of our reasonable request for support to remediate coal tips and address flooding, are only a few examples of where the UK Government has failed the people of Wales. We have also seen that by not concluding its spending review until late October, the UK Government has yet again failed to respect devolution, impacting our own budget and scrutiny timetable. While I hope to return to our normal timetable in future years, the reality is that we will be, again, at the whim of the UK Government. And, of course, I will continue to call for devolution to be respected in my engagement with the UK Government.

In light of the challenging settlement and the ongoing volatile fiscal context, we have done all that we can to maximise our available funding. I am positive that we have created a draft budget that appropriately utilises all of the levers within our powers. While the course of action we have taken is prudent, it does not come without risks. In fully deploying the available funding, we have adopted a new reserve strategy and overprogrammed our capital budgets. I therefore want to make it clear that, without further funding from the UK Government, any calls for increased funding would have to come from disinvestment in another area. In this respect, I welcome the recognition of the need for greater budgetary flexibilities from the UK Government. We may yet receive further funding from the UK Government in year, but it is often provided with very short notice and without the flexibility needed to maximise the benefits of these allocations.

This draft budget delivers on the commitments made in the Welsh Government's co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru. It supports investment in 13 of the areas we have agreed to work together on, such as investment of an additional £90 million to support our ambition for free school meals for all primary school pupils. I will continue to work with designated Members in these areas of agreement. The draft budget also signals the investment of £20 million for looked-after children and care leavers as a result of discussions with Jane Dodds.

I'd like to offer my thanks to all of those involved in the budget preparation, including the Finance Committee. The scrutiny of our assumptions and plans is an integral part of the process, and whilst we agree with the vast majority of the recommendations, there are some that we will need to consider in light of the limitations I have set out today. I and my Cabinet colleagues will respond formally to the recommendations of the Finance Committee report and the other Senedd committee reports in advance of the vote on the final budget on 8 March. To conclude, I am confident that we have a budget that can deliver our ambition and our vision for a stronger, fairer and greener Wales. I am proud to present a draft budget that delivers for Wales, and I look forward to a constructive debate within the Senedd. Diolch.