1. Will the Minister make a statement on recent local authority capital expenditure? OAQ(5)0042(FLG)

I thank the Member for that question. After adjusting for the one-off capital expenditure associated with the buy-out of the housing revenue account subsidy system, capital expenditure by local authorities increased by 7.4 per cent in 2015-16.

Cabinet Secretary, statistics out last week show that capital expenditure on social services has fallen by 45 per cent in the last year from £22 million in 2014-15 to £12.6 million in the last financial year—the greatest fall of all local government capital expenditure. Revenue spend has also fallen by 0.4 per cent. In light of this reduction in funding, would you please provide clarity on Welsh Government commitments to better integrate health and social services and work to remove the uncertainty that hangs over many local authorities’ social services departments?

I thank the Member for her supplementary question. I think that when accounting adjustments are taken into account, capital expenditure on social services actually fell by 1.1 per cent last year, and that was in line with the estimates that local authorities had provided and takes no account of the £10 million additional capital provided through the intermediate care fund, which is largely spent on social services matters.

In the draft budget, published yesterday, in which, for the first time for a number of years, we are able to provide local authorities in Wales with a budget that has no cash cuts within it, I have earmarked £25 million for social services purposes, in response to the call from local authorities themselves, but in clear recognition of the pressures that that service faces.

Building works will start in my constituency soon on a new community primary school at Cwmaman, where the local authority is using twenty-first century schools funding to deliver school facilities that are fit for purpose. Will you join with me, Cabinet Secretary, in congratulating Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council for the way in which it is engaging with the twenty-first century schools programme to improve capital infrastructure, but also the educational opportunities it is offering to children and young people?

Certainly, I agree with Vikki Howells in her commendation of RCT council, and indeed councils across Wales for the way in which they have embraced the twenty-first century schools programme. Over 150 schools and colleges across Wales are seeing rebuilding and refurbishment of their premises. But the point that my colleague made in her supplementary towards the end is perhaps the more important. Schools are more than buildings: it’s the message that they send to young people about the value we place on them and the opportunities that proper premises of this sort will go on providing into the future.

Will the Cabinet Secretary join me in congratulating City of Cardiff Council on their project for capital spending to introduce light-emitting diode and dimmable street lighting in the city? Doesn’t he think that’s an excellent way to use capital money with long-term benefits?

I thank Julie Morgan for that question. I think Cardiff’s record in using capital spending on environmental purposes of this sort is admirable. The latest intention to use capital spending for street lighting in the city is part of a wider pattern in which they’ve used money, made available through the Welsh Government in part, for street lighting energy efficiency, council building energy efficiency and school lighting programmes—in Rhydypenau Primary School in her own constituency, for example. It is a very good example of the way in which local authorities are using the assistance available to decarbonise their spending, providing a better future, not only for their own citizens but for the whole of our nation.