Rebecca Evans: Corporate joint committees have a duty to develop regional transport plans. These will drive how local authorities in each region collaboratively deliver safe, integrated, efficient and economic transport services, including in Denbighshire.
Rebecca Evans: Thank you very much for raising that and, of course, the statement last Friday, I think that one of the biggest impacts of it will be the fact that there was absolutely nothing there to support public services. You’ll have heard me say yesterday that our Welsh Government budget is now, across these three years, worth up to £4 billion less than it was when we set our spending plans, and...
Rebecca Evans: One of the commitments in our programme for government is to reduce the administrative burden on local authorities, so we've already started that piece of work by approaching all local authorities, both leaders, chief executives and those within the Society of Welsh Treasurers and others in order to understand what they see as the particular administrative burden. So, we'll be looking forward...
Rebecca Evans: The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 put in place a new performance regime to drive improvement in local authorities across Wales. Alongside this I have agreed £800,000 funding for the Welsh Local Government Association improvement programme to support corporate improvement within councils.
Rebecca Evans: I'm grateful for the question and I'll certainly discuss the specific case that you raise with the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, but pedestrian safety and Safe Routes in Communities schemes are clearly important to us, as are our active travel schemes, which, of course, support pedestrians and cyclists and other users as well. So, you'll have seen our investment in active travel in...
Rebecca Evans: Llywydd, I'll ask my colleague, the Minister with responsibility for childcare and the provision of childcare, to perhaps provide a written answer to that, because those are not discussions I've had directly with the Minister, and I think that would be a policy choice for her to make. So, apologies that I can't give a more detailed answer.
Rebecca Evans: My priorities are set out in our programme for government and our 2022-23 budget; preparations for the 2023-24 budget are currently under way. Despite the challenging fiscal context, we will ensure our spending priorities have the greatest possible impact for a stronger, fairer and greener Wales.
Rebecca Evans: Yes. The provision of adequate childcare support is one of our key policies to support families. The most recent final budget included increases of £100 million to cover the capital and revenue programmes for both childcare and Flying Start for the current three-year budget period.
Rebecca Evans: Well, we consider all of our tax levers at all points across the rates and bands that we're able to set in Welsh rates of income tax, land transaction tax and landfill disposals tax, whilst also looking at the local taxes that we have here in Wales as well. So, all of these things are constantly under review. Of course we do the modelling to understand what the impact would be of different...
Rebecca Evans: Llyr Gruffydd is right that I didn't answer his question yesterday, and I realised it immediately after I finished speaking. But I was pleased to be able to answer the same question, which was raised by his colleague the Chair of the Finance Committee during the same session. And I can only repeat what I said yesterday, in the sense that Welsh Government has an established process for dealing...
Rebecca Evans: So, on the issue of non-domestic rates, I'm pleased that the consultation that we recently published has been warmly welcomed, and I'm looking forward to reading the responses to that consultation. In regard to what we might be planning now for our budget, which we will be publishing in the middle of December, of course you'll have heard the statement from the Chancellor on Monday that...
Rebecca Evans: Well, just to, I suppose, finish the picture on the last question, because you did mention free ports, I should have added as well that any discussions and any agreement that we might come to, of course, would be in the same vein as our approach to free ports, where we were not willing to accept any dilution in our environmental standards or our approach to fair work. So, those things will be...
Rebecca Evans: Well, we are very sceptical about the benefits that investment zones could bring, precisely because we disagree with your analysis in the sense that we believe that investment zones do have the propensity to draw investment away from some areas, and so displacing economic activity from the areas that it's most needed in. And that was one of our concerns over the free ports as well. We are...
Rebecca Evans: Well, I was wondering where to even start with that contribution, because we know that the methodology alone results in the fact that Wales will receive £1 billion less in replacement funding from the United Kingdom as compared to what we would have had from the European Union. So, Wales is being absolutely ripped off on this point. And if you think that £20 million in one area of Wales is...
Rebecca Evans: I'd be more than happy to continue to make these arguments in regard to both the levelling-up fund and the shared prosperity fund to the UK Government. We do have our next meeting of the inter-ministerial standing committee, which is what the quadrilaterals used to be, where all the Ministers for finance from the UK get together, and we've asked specifically for a discussion on replacement...
Rebecca Evans: The UK Government has bypassed the Welsh Government and the Senedd on this fund, which fails to address persistent regional inequalities across the UK. I have repeatedly raised with a succession of Chancellors and Treasury Ministers the disruption and the substantial loss of overall funding impacting communities, businesses and charities in Wales.
Rebecca Evans: Huw Irranca-Davies is entirely right that reform is long overdue. It's something that the IFS also noted in its report. It said that council tax is out of date, regressive and distortionary, and we recognise all of that. The IFS did recognise that we are the only part of the United Kingdom that has ever revalued its council tax base, but, nonetheless, we are still very out of date. And the...
Rebecca Evans: I do recognise as well that this is an important area of joint working between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Government. I'm very grateful to Cefin Campbell in particular for the work that he's done in helping shape the ideas for a council tax that will rebalance the tax burden on households and fund the services that everybody benefits from, and that connects people to their communities and also...
Rebecca Evans: The first thing to say about our proposals in respect of the reform of council tax is that they are not going to happen immediately or require a revaluation of all of our properties across Wales in order to give us the building blocks for the revaluation. We have had some work done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has looked at the potential implications, and we think that there...
Rebecca Evans: Through our established partnership arrangements, I've involved local government at every stage in developing plans to create a fairer council tax. I met with all 22 leaders in June, ahead of launching our phase 1 consultation, and I will convene regular discussions as we move forward.
