Rebecca Evans: Presiding Officer, mobile phone coverage, and any compensation, is an issue that is not devolved to the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government, so that might be something that Leanne Wood would wish to take up with the appropriate Minister in the UK Government. On the second matter, universities in Wales are independent and autonomous institutions, and it is a matter for...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you very much. I will have a conversation with my colleague the Minister for Health and Social Services with regard to your interest particularly in the Veterans' NHS Wales service and the support that it receives but also the available capacity within that organisation to meet the needs of veterans. In terms of the school liaison officer role, you asked how they might or might not be...
Rebecca Evans: Diolch, Llywydd. There are no changes to this week's business. Draft business for the next three weeks is set out on the business statement and announcement, which can be found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically.
Rebecca Evans: I thank Mick Antoniw for raising that. In terms of, 'Have we seen any of the money of it yet?', well, the answer to that is 'no', and there's no cast-iron guarantee that we will, of course, because it has to be subject to a finance Bill going through Parliament, and Parliament, of course, is not sitting at the moment. So, that's obviously an area of concern to us. So, we won't see a single...
Rebecca Evans: Well, I can't agree that the UK Government's taken immediate action to address funding in schools. They've been in power for a decade, so it has taken them some time to wake up to the importance of education and also they gave schools in England and the NHS the certainty of a three-year outlook for their spending. They didn't have the courtesy to do that here in Wales, where we had been...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you. All of these arguments in favour of improved settlements for local authorities are very well made and well heard, and you would have heard the First Minister previously say that were additional funding to be available then local authorities and local government would be at the front of that queue.
Rebecca Evans: Based on the UK Government’s spending round, our budget for 2020-1 will be 2 per cent lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11, equivalent to £300 million lower in real terms than a decade ago. In my oral statement yesterday, I set out the impact of the UK Government’s spending review.
Rebecca Evans: I know that there have been consultations on this matter by Welsh Government in the past as to whether particular classes of property should be exempt from small business rates relief. Certainly, that was something that was looked at in depth when we developed the permanent scheme. Removal of rate relief for self-catering properties wasn't considered appropriate and I think, if I recall...
Rebecca Evans: I can assure you that we are having these discussions with local authorities in terms of their experiences of the issue, to what extent this is a problem. It does vary across Wales, I think, in terms of how many second homes there are and how many holiday lets there are, and it's certainly an acute problem in some areas. But it's one that we're really keen to address because, as I said, we've...
Rebecca Evans: Thank you for raising this, and thank you also for your interest in the issue and for speaking to my officials with your ideas as to how we can start to address this particular matter. It is the case that a business must be able to demonstrate that the property that they're seeking to let as holiday let accommodation, for example, is available for at least 140 days in a 12-month period, and...
Rebecca Evans: My officials are continuing to work with local government to review how local authorities are using their discretionary powers to apply council tax premiums. They will consider any evidence provided to aid the review and ensure that the legislation is operating as intended.
Rebecca Evans: Well, as I say, Welsh local authorities do have that statutory requirement to report the end destinations of the waste that they collect, but I think that we're all well aware of the recent WalesOnline article that showed that 0.8 per cent of waste collected in Wales was sent to unspecified final destinations. Obviously, even though that's a very small percentage, it's something that is of...
Rebecca Evans: Well, yes, I certainly need to acknowledge that we need to do more in this particular area, because it is true that some of our waste is exported to Europe and, as you said, to other countries around the world, but it is important to recognise that most of it is processed here in Wales. We've supported the development of infrastructure to process our waste here, with the longer term aim to...
Rebecca Evans: I have regular discussions with the Minister for Housing and Local Government to discuss a range of financial issues, including recycling. Despite the cuts to our capital budget, we've invested an additional £30 million over the period 2018/19 to 2020/1 to support the collaborative change in waste procurement programmes.
Rebecca Evans: Thank you for raising this issue. I think it's important that the thresholds that we have here in Wales reflect the Welsh tax base. Our scheme reflects the fact that rateable values here in Wales—the average rateable value—is much lower than across the border in England. I think in Wales we're looking at average rateable values of £33,000, whereas over in England I think we're looking at...
Rebecca Evans: So, at the annual tax conference, which I held back in July—and I was really pleased that Mark Reckless was able to join us at that—the OBR gave a very detailed presentation that set out how it considers various elements and what it considers in terms of being able to provide those forecasts. So, they were providing forecasts for us specifically here in Wales, but obviously drawing on a...
Rebecca Evans: Local authorities can use discretionary rate relief to reduce the non-domestic rate bills for businesses and other ratepayers where they consider it will have the greatest local impact. Welsh Government has provided an additional £2.4 million to local authorities in 2019-20 to deliver discretionary relief.
Rebecca Evans: So, we're in constant discussion with the OBR and the majority of our funding is still determined, of course, by the UK Government’s spending decisions, which have just been announced. As you say, there are no new fiscal forecasts alongside the announcement, so there’s no update to the devolved revenue forecast for Wales. But the next tax revenue forecast for the Welsh Government will be...
Rebecca Evans: I completely agree that health and social care are completely interlocked—you can't separate the two. Pressures in one area will inevitably lead to pressures in another. And investment in one area can benefit the other, which is why we have the integrated care fund. I was pleased, in my previous role, to announce £130 million of additional funding, capital funding, for the integrated care...
Rebecca Evans: So, we're having those clear discussions with local government, in terms of what they've identified as the pressures that they're experiencing within their budget, but also their ambitions to do more in future years. I do have a meeting with the local government Minister with the local government finance sub-group, which is the group where all the leaders of local authorities and chief...
