I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Budget debate, and I will confine my remarks to my policy area of health and social care.

As a first step, I reiterate my and my party's priority for our health and social care system. I believe that, despite the political wrangling, all of us across the House want to see a health service that is fit for purpose and serves us and our families in times of need in an efficient and practical manner. It is important to stress those issues when debating the Budget Bill.

In the last few contributions, we have heard political manoeuvring around the Health budget, but, as someone who has been consistently out on the election trail for a number of weeks, I have to warn people: our constituents have little time for this, and they recognise that there is a considerable amount of work for us all to do to sort out what are fundamental issues for the health and well-being of our society.