Rebecca Evans: Thank you for asking that question. The portfolio of invest-to-save projects has a really wide range of repayment profiles. For general projects, the longest repayment profile is six years, and there are several being more than that. However, energy efficiency projects, for example, can be repaid within eight to 10 years. But, as I say, it depends on the project. But I can reassure you that...
Rebecca Evans: I thank Mike Hedges for raising that; he's long been a champion of both invest-to-save and innovate-to-save. The innovate-to-save initiative between the Welsh Government, Nesta, Cardiff University and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action launched in February 2017 with a budget of £5.8 million. In March of this year, we added an additional £0.5 million to the budget, to take it up to £6.3...
Rebecca Evans: Well, as you say, there was some research—an independent study, in fact—in 2014, which concluded that, on average, the fund generates a benefit of £3 for every £1 spent on that scheme. A frequent question, as Nick Ramsay says, is why good practice just doesn't seem to spread very easily, and this is something that we're working on with Cardiff University. We're researching the barriers,...
Rebecca Evans: The Welsh Government supports the principles of good asset management, including surplus asset disposal processes. Through published guidance such as 'Managing Welsh Public Money' and the continued work on asset collaboration led by Ystadau Cymru, we seek to embed best practice across the Welsh public sector.
Rebecca Evans: There is a financial limit at which health boards can retain the funds for any assets they dispose of, but above that limit then, the funds do come back to Welsh Government. And I think that's only right in the sense that the Welsh Government will have the overview across the whole of the Welsh public sector, and the Welsh NHS, in order to understand the pressures that are arising at that...
Rebecca Evans: The current key criteria for consideration when considering how to manage assets or dispose of assets include creating economic growth, delivering more integrated and customer-focused services, generating capital receipts, reducing running costs and decarbonisation of the public estate. But Julie James, Ken Skates and I have been doing a piece of work that looks across the Welsh public...
Rebecca Evans: I was the Minister in charge of that portfolio when those legal proceedings were taken forward. Unfortunately, they are still ongoing. So, as such, I am unable to update now, but I know the Minister for housing, who now has this within her portfolio, will obviously be keen to update Members as soon as there is something that we are able to say.
Rebecca Evans: Thank you very much for the question. You'll recall that the funding that would have been earmarked for the M4, should the decision have been made to make the Orders, was up to £1 billion. But we have to remember that actually that £1 billion related to £150 million of borrowing that we're able to draw down on an annual basis up to a maximum of £1 billion. You'll have heard the Minister...
Rebecca Evans: Well, what I did do was write to the Treasury last year seeking an increase in our borrowing limit, which, as I said, is currently £150 million a year, sequentially up to £1 billion, to help deliver our investment priorities. And when we talk about borrowing, when we talk about our capital fund, we talk about it in the round. So, we don't borrow against a specific project or a specific...
Rebecca Evans: Well, as I say, I've already started these discussions in terms of our borrowing limit. But I'll be issuing a written statement later this week, which talks about the statement of funding policy, and that's a discussion that I started in my first quadrilateral with other finance Ministers, and with the support of the Scottish and Northern Irish administrations, which looks at a much more fair...
Rebecca Evans: I thank Nick Ramsay very much for that. We're having the start of our discussions now in terms of the preparation for the 2020-21 budget. Obviously, we don't yet have a budget for that. We're having discussions in terms of the priorities that we would wish to see across Government. In each of the discussions that I've had with my colleagues, I've discussed our response to the Well-being of...
Rebecca Evans: That's part of the discussions that I have with individual Ministers in seeking to understand their priorities within their portfolios as to how they would use the funding that they have and their responsibilities and the areas that they have to respond to in order to take forward our responsibilities in terms of the climate emergency. I'm familiar with the future generations commissioner's...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you for raising that, and this is a particular area of interest for the First Minister. It's another item that was in his First Minister's manifesto. I haven't had a direct conversation about the national forest with the environment Minister, but I have been in contact with her officials who have been advising me on what the potential cost implications could be for that because,...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you for raising the issue of, as it's called, the '£1 billion black hole' in Scotland as a result of their moving to the Scottish rates of income tax. Obviously, it takes a number of years for that reconciliation in tax to be undertaken. So, it's only now that they're understanding really the impact. I think part of the reason why I can take some heart from the way in which we're doing...
Rebecca Evans: Well, we have developed a very good relationship, I think, with the OBR, and they've certainly been keen to support us as we develop our new taxes, for example, in terms of modelling what they might be for us when we do get to the point at which we are able to provide them with some parameters for the research work. But I think that, as the Member says, as we move towards the next Assembly...
Rebecca Evans: The Welsh Government supports the principle of establishing a community bank for Wales. The Welsh Government’s budget allocated resources to support new businesses. It will be for the Minister for the Economy and Transport to make any offer of seed funding to a community bank.
Rebecca Evans: Thank you for raising the community bank idea. Of course, we do support the principle of establishing a community bank, and developing this is a priority for us. By means of an update, the Welsh Government officials met, and the Development Bank of Wales met with potential stakeholders in the third sector and the private sector last year, including the Public Bank for Wales Action Group, and...
Rebecca Evans: Our corporate asset management strategy was published in 2016 to bring greater transparency to our approach to managing Government land and property assets. I'm committed to ensuring that the assets we hold as a Government deliver public value and actively support our objectives across Government.
Rebecca Evans: Well, as I say, the corporate asset management strategy has been published, and I'm happy to provide the Member with more information. But it is fully aligned to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 in its ways of working and well-being goals. And, in fact, it's very much designed to support the Act's challenge that Government decision making should be more holistic. It's...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you. I was able to advise David Rowlands earlier on during questions this afternoon that I was the Minister who was in the portfolio when that action was instigated, and as yet the legal action is still going on, but the Minister now with responsibility, Julie James, will certainly update Members when there is something to update. Because it's an ongoing process, I'm afraid I can't...
