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Transport (Wales) Bill

Most of that increase was eaten up by inflation. The hon. Gentleman knows that under the Conservative Government of that period, the inflation rate was more than double what it has been under Labour. I know from personal experience of coming into the old Welsh Office in May 1997 that funding was at a dreadful level for education, health and transport. We set about the task of rebuilding Wales’s infrastructure. I am surprised—uppity though he is—that he has the gall to challenge me on public spending of all things when the Conservative Government remorselessly cut public spending, closed hospitals, reduced education provision and saw the transport system go down the tubes in Wales. That is the reality.