Lywydd, diolch yn fawr.

Can I thank all those Members who have taken part in the discussion? Many Members have pointed to those things that we have been able to achieve in the budget, in the new investments that we’ve been able to make between the draft and the final budget. I thought I would just reiterate here the decision-making path that I set out to the Finance Committee in relation to any additional capital that might have come our way in the autumn statement. My first priority was to restore money into budgets where the constraints at the draft budget stage meant that we hadn't been able to do everything that we would have liked to have done, and that's why you do see in this budget new investments in flood-risk management and in urban regeneration.

My second priority was to look at those key commitments in the programme for government and, where possible, to accelerate our ability to achieve those. I am particularly committed to the 20,000 affordable homes—a challenging target, but housing need in Wales is a very, very real issue for many families, and anything we can do to respond to that agenda is something I was keen to support in this budget.

And then, when we had done that, I looked to see whether there were any ideas that hadn't been possible to support at all up until this point, and there, the £40 million investment in the primary care estate—another example of the Government's determination, and we’ve heard a number of examples of it this afternoon, to do important things in the field of social care, as well as primary and community medicine, to recognise that system as a system in the round.

Llywydd, I think there have been three themes that have run through the discussion. I'll say something very briefly about each one of them. First of all, there has been some interesting discussion about the way the budget is made. Let me concur with what one of my colleagues said: we are a Government without a majority, nor do we have a monopoly on ideas. So, working with other parties to consider our proposals, to be able to add to the list of possibilities, I think is something that we should welcome as a way of conducting business here. Is the budget different as a result of our discussions with Plaid Cymru? Of course it is. Is there anything in this budget that Labour Members would not be pleased to support? Of course there is not. That’s the nature of negotiations. Alongside those immediate discussions, then, you will also see, because we published it as part of the budget agreement, we have an agenda of longer term issues that we will be discussing in the finance liaison group and, this year, without an election and without the constraints that that places on our timetable, we will be able to attend to those matters too.

There’s been a debate this afternoon about uncertainty and sustainability. Of course, I wished that I was able to provide longer term budgets on the revenue side to go alongside the four-year capital budgets we've been able to propose, but, as Simon Thomas said, uncertainty stares us in the face, not just this year, but in years ahead. We will have the impact of leaving the European Union to contend with. We have the enduring difficulty of that flawed and self-defeating policy of austerity that Mike Hedges drew attention to and the way that that bears down on our budgets. We have the particular difficulty that the Chancellor confirmed he intends to go ahead with £3.5 billion-worth of revenue cuts in 2019-20. That by itself would wipe out any of the revenue gains that we have received from the UK Government over recent years. So, while I am absolutely prepared to recognise the desirability of sustainability in long-term planning, you still have to manage with the very real uncertainties that face you right here, right now, and will go on making a difficult context for budget making in this Assembly for the next period.

Finally, there’s been discussion about the budget process, and I fully agree that, as we begin to exercise our new fiscal responsibilities, we will need to recalibrate our processes to make sure that we are able to focus on those big-picture decisions that will underlie the way that the budget is prepared and developed in future years. I think there are different ideas about how that might best be done, but it’s a discussion that the Finance Committee’s report provides a very helpful basis for agreeing on the detail of that over the coming year.

Llywydd, careful planning and preparation lie ahead, then, to meet the challenge of those harder choices and that different range of possibilities that we face over the next 12 months. We’re already preparing for the next budget round, and beyond will use the Finance Committee scrutiny report as an important contribution to that. I’ve already begun discussions with my colleagues about how we will go about that in the rest of this year. Nevertheless, in all those circumstances, Llywydd, this is a budget that takes Wales forward. It invests in those important areas that will make the biggest difference in people’s lives, and I commend it to the Assembly this afternoon.