, Plenary
Welsh Conservatives Debate: Local government funding
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to be opening this debate this evening on local governmental funding, and I move the Welsh Conservative motion tabled in the name of my colleague Darren Millar. There is no getting away from the fact that…
, Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
I'm grateful to Ken Skates for raising this important issue here today, and, as you've highlighted, Minister, there are several good charities doing some great work in this area already, and I point to the Farm Safety Foundation and the DPJ Foundation, who…
, Plenary
Business Statement and Announcement
Thank you temporary Deputy Presiding Officer—we need a snappier title for you, I suspect. Trefnydd, I'd like to request a statement from the education Minister regarding progress in dealing with the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in…
, Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
Thank you for your response, First Minister. Of course, your tenure is soon coming to an end and any review won't be completed in your time as First Minister. And to give you credit, of course, you've stood nobly by this policy in recent years and months, but…
, Plenary
Questions to the First Minister
3. What assessment has the First Minister made of the public response to the Welsh Government's 20 mph review? OQ60581
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Thank you. Thanks, Chair.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Of course, there's a moral dilemma here, isn't there, as well, because we all, around this table, and as a Government, in the Chamber stand up and say that everybody should be in receipt of things like the national living wage, but when the funding seems…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
There are, obviously, ways in which capital can be used, not specific to the housing support grant, but to deal with some of the pressures that housing support grant-type funding also deals with—I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. I'm not sure if…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
I appreciate others need to perhaps jump in as well, Chair, but—
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
There are other ways in which that capital could be used to mitigate some of the issues and risks that are being presented within homelessness services, aren't there?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Just a bit further on the housing support grant, Minister, you were absolutely right at the start to point to the fact that your full MEG needs to be understood, a little bit at least, to appreciate the pressures elsewhere. And obviously one of the decisions…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Great. Thank you. Thanks, Chair.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
To be very clear, then, you're not expecting the timeline you originally hoped for this proposed Bill to be implemented to be affected.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
All right. And then, just moving on to the White Paper proposals in regard to homelessness, again, the WLGA, in their evidence, obviously representing the councils, have indicated that they would certainly need any financial implications of the proposals…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Could I ask the Minister, the BEL lines you mentioned again, the numbers of them for me? You said 11—
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
On that particular point, I'm just reviewing the evidence we received from the Welsh Local Government Association, which is in the pack today as well, and I'll quote what they've said in relation to that point. So, they've said: 'This sustained increase in…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
So, on that specific point of homelessness, and the immediate issues that councils are facing around temporary accommodation in particular, do you think the funding, the budget, that local authorities will be receiving is going to be enough to enable them to…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024 - 25 - evidence session 3: Minister for Climate Change
Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, Minister. Thank you for taking the time to be with us this afternoon. I'm just going to touch on homelessness for a moment; it may drift into other areas, as many things are linked together. I wonder, perhaps, if you…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Just a quick question further to that point on the way in which health boards set their budgets. I'm interested—. And alongside, obviously, local authorities as well. As a finance Minister, how do you view that moral position, I guess, where a local authority…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Okay. Thank you, Chair.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Sorry, just to explain the point they were making. They were talking about bad decisions, where they're having to, probably, remove preventative services, which will in the long run be much worse for your budgets, as finance Minister, but also of course for…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
And we heard from the WLGA witnesses this morning that they feel as though decision making has moved from being just difficult decisions to make to now becoming bad decisions to make, which of course will have a longer term impact on pressures in the future…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
So, with all that in mind, does it concern you at all, Minister, the levels of resilience in councils?
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 2: Minister for Finance and Local Government
Thanks, Chair. Good morning, Minister, thank you for taking the time to be with us this morning. I'd be grateful if perhaps you could briefly outline how you see the resilience of councils in Wales at the moment from a financial perspective.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - evidence session 1: Welsh Local Government Association
Thank you. And then you've touched on it already, but I'm not sure whether there's anything further you wanted to add in relation to the types of things that you're having to consider to try and bridge the budgetary gap, especially when you're trying to fund…
