No, I'll carry on. We heard this morning in committee that service providers fear we could be about to enter another period of dire austerity. As a council, we organised and restructured, making nearly £100 million-worth of savings over those 10 years. We went from six depots to one, rationalising staff by nearly 40 per cent, year after year salami slicing departments by 30 per cent. When we could not cut vital services, such as social healthcare and education, any more we took to street scene then and anything deemed non-statutory. And now we're really concerned about leisure services, as we've been discussing at committee.

Ten years ago, council tax used to be 24 per cent of the budget—the rest came from Government. But now it's, on average, about 30 per cent of the budget. Some Conservative-led councils did cut service funding rather than raise council tax, and I remember Conwy council cutting education funding and other services rather than raise council tax significantly, and, in my first year as an MS, I remember visiting a school in Colwyn Bay who were really struggling because of that cut in education funding. The pot was left empty for the new administration following last year's elections. They were unable to deliver vital services, and so council tax has had to go up to help deliver them, including education again, and to help those most vulnerable.