Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 11 January 2017.
I thank Joyce Watson for that. When we published the draft budget back in October we had some difficult decisions to make on capital investment in order to live within the means that we had available to us. I said to the Finance Committee in my first scrutiny session with them that, if any additional capital were to become available in the autumn statement, my first priority would be to revisit those portfolios where some of those difficult decisions had to be made. I was very pleased—and had a series of discussions with the Cabinet Secretary involved to impress this very firmly on me—to restore the £33 million for flood defence purposes. I was very pleased indeed to be able to do that.
I’m grateful to the Member for pointing to the £150 million innovative coastal risk management scheme, because you do have to see these two things together. It follows on from Suzy Davies’s question earlier about using the whole range of tools that we have available to us to promote capital investment for important purposes in Wales. The Welsh Government is now working with NRW and local authorities to prepare a pipeline of future schemes for investment using that £150 million, and I’m very pleased to be able to give the Member the assurance she seeks that we will continue to work hard in this area to obviate the difficulties that some of her constituents have faced.