, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
That's very much part of the planning process, Janet. Obviously, I can't comment on individual planning applications and so on, but the environmental impact is very much part of the planning process, as are the community benefit schemes that come out of it…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes, that's an ongoing conversation with NRW, Joyce. As I said, we did the baseline review and, off the back of that, we're able to understand exactly what it costs to have various levels of service from them. So, that's an ongoing conversation that we have…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
So, it's not reduced, Joyce; it's flat is what I'm saying. It's not escalating, rather than it's reduced. But, as I said, we're still doing the regulatory impact assessment and the decision making on site locations prior to the consultation. Those pieces of…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
So, Joyce, I'm afraid that that's in Lesley Griffiths's portfolio. But Claire works across the two portfolios, and so does Dean, so it's possible they can answer that question, but I'm afraid I can't.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Thanks, Joyce. So, we're currently in the process of trying to minimise the impact of the £250,000 budget reduction here. This includes supporting the projects through other funding streams, including Nature Networks, for example. It includes delivering…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
So, this is the point I was making earlier, about how the revenue programme supports the capital spend. So, whilst biodiversity has seen a £1.5 million revenue reduction, we've been able to increase the capital element, which enables the Welsh Government to…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
That's right Huw. If you look at the Welsh Government's property strategy, for example, you'll see that that's changed to enhance biodiversity, as has the health MEG's property portfolio strategy. And the land strategies coming out of the land division have…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
It's very hard to identity it, Huw. We've been working with the Welsh Treasury budget improvement advisory group to include biodiversity in the latest Welsh Treasury budget improvement plan. You can find it under 'prevention' alongside the 'climate change'…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
The financial year or the actual year? [Laughter.]
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Not yet. We're working with a number of operators, including the global Under2 Coalition, Huw, which I know you're familiar with, in terms of how we can leverage green funding from across the globe. That's carbon credit-type funding, but, actually, there's a…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
We support all of the universities. Obviously, we support them in a number of different ways. The education Minister's budget supports universities, but, actually, we also support them in assisting them with things like peer review papers that will allow them…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Thanks, Janet. Just to say that we absolutely recognise all the challenges set out in that report, and the whole series of things that taking action by 2030 will require to get significant change in the nature emergency. I'm afraid I haven't seen the full…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Very briefly, then, Janet. Obviously, we have to work right across the Government on this, so both Lee and myself have met with both the economy Minister and the education Minister, for example, to make sure that the learner travel stuff and the…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Yes, so just very briefly, then, Chair, Joyce, local authorities are working on their refreshed LDPs. We do have full LDP coverage across Wales, which is extraordinary, really. We've worked for that for a long time. We're now encouraging local authorities to…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Yes, I'd just like to make the point that I was also going to make, so, Huw, this is a complex set of other issues running across the landscape as well. So, for example, the corporate joint committees have to put into place their strategic transport and their…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Chair, I’d also like to add a couple of sentences.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
So, just to say, we ask the head of NRW and the head of TfW to come to our directors meeting quarterly, because we've done this as a collective. So—[Inaudible.]—the director general, myself and the Deputy Minister all sit together and go through the whole…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Can I add to that, please, Chair?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
—start off with that? Okay. So, yes, we've done that in a number of ways. This MEG also has Natural Resources Wales in it. So, over a number of years, we've done a full baseline review of NRW's costs, for example, so we now have a unit cost for NRW. We've…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Shall I—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
No, I'm sure they don't. Sorry, Lee. I'll just finish the sentence myself, and go back to you. No, and one of the big issues for us is always a real problem in rail—I'm sure that Lee Waters will be able to elaborate on this—. It is always a real issue for us…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 1
Thank you, Chair. So, we worked with all of the directors, right across the portfolio, to try and discover how we could best minimise the damage, if you like, of the budget settlement. The Welsh Government, as you know, and everyone has said to you, and I'll…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Pleasure.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Well, it is so far, but, as I said to you, there's a large piece of work going on to make sure that we understand fully the cost implications of all of it. This is an invest-to-save proposition as well—I just want to really emphasise that. So, this Bill is…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, the £1.4 million that's in the pot is still there.
