I'm grateful to you, acting Presiding Officer. I'm grateful also to the Finance Committee, grateful to you for you coming to Llanhilleth, of course, to conduct some of your work, but also for hosting this debate this afternoon, which I think is absolutely crucial in setting the terms of the debate that we'll have on the Welsh Government's budget over the coming months.

Unlike others, without wishing to be churlish, I don't share the committee's view on the difficulties the Welsh Government is facing in publishing a budget in the coming year, because I think we're facing, possibly, the most difficult financial challenges that we've faced since the crisis in 2008, and I think it's right and proper that the Government takes time to consider those challenges and publishes a draft budget when it's able to do so and is in a position to debate those matters with us. So, I don't criticise the Minister for delaying the budget at all at the moment.

But we have to understand that when we were debating this issues of finance and spending in 2008, we were only debating and discussing a spending budget. We are now debating a budget where we're also responsible for raising part of our own income, and that makes this debate absolutely fundamentally different to the one we had over a decade and a half ago, because since then what we've seen—. Through austerity, we've seen stagnation in growth, we've seen stagnation in GDP, we've seen stagnation in incomes. And not only have we seen stagnation in income, but we've seen changes to the distribution of income, where those people who are in the top decile of incomes available to them have seen greater increases than those who receive less, and as a consequence there is going to be less funding available, I believe, in the Welsh Government's budget, and more challenges facing people in Wales. So, how do we as a Parliament and how does a Government publish this information, and how do we address those challenges? I think addressing the challenges, both of our economy, of our communities and then of our people I think is the biggest challenge facing us. And rather than list spending requirements, I believe we need to have a richer debate, a bigger debate, about how we raise this money and how we raise the funds in order to deliver those spending programmes.

I'm seeing real challenges at the moment. We've heard a lot from the UK Government in recent years about levelling up. We now know that that is over. We've seen it in the last week. It was always a slogan and not a policy, but now we've seen it dumped in a race to the bottom in terms of tax cuts and spending requirements. I asked the Minister, if any one of the Tory candidates currently standing for the leadership of the Tory party is elected, how the income cuts from tax cuts will impact the Welsh budget, because if we're saying we need more money to address all these different priorities, and I agree with all of them, then how do you do that on a declining budget? How do you do it in a budget that's been declining because of the tax cuts promised by London, and, then, when you're unable to raise taxes because of the impact of the recession, of the cost of living, on our own tax base?

And how will we replace lost EU funds? I was speaking to the British Heart Foundation today about the impact of lost EU funds on Welsh research. Now, universities in Wales have traditionally relied, of course, upon the Horizon programme, but the incompetence and duplicity of the UK Government in dealing with the European Union means that we may well lose access to those programmes. So, how will we support universities in the future? And also, acting Presiding Officer, the impact of Brexit on our economy: we know that Brexit is having an impact on our ability to grow our economy. We know it's having an impact on companies and people, we know it's going to have an impact on our budget, what that impact will be, and I believe it's important that we understand these things. But it is also important that we understand the impact of inflation on services that have been delivered. What is the impact of inflation going to be on the NHS or on education? What is the impact of inflation going to be on local government budgets? Brexit has been a calamity for this country. It is an ongoing calamity and is at the root of many of the economic challenges we face. But we have to understand how the Welsh Government is facing up to these things. So, without wishing to test your patience, acting Presiding Officer, I would like the Welsh Government to publish more information—I think the Welsh Government's done very well, as it happens, over the last few years in publishing information to support its budget—but I would like to see more information published earlier to enable us to understand the challenges facing the Welsh Government and then to be able to come to political decisions on our priorities as a consequence of that understanding. Thank you very much.