1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on Welsh Government funding for public service projects within the City and County of Swansea? OAQ(5)0104(FLG)

Thank you very much. The Welsh Government provides funding for public service projects, large or small, within the City and County of Swansea, from £100,000 invest-to-save money for a new looked after children service to £100 million at the Morriston Hospital site.

Thank you very much for that response, Cabinet Secretary. Over the past few weeks, people from across Swansea have been in touch with concerns about the future of the Swansea Community Farm, which has done excellent work over a period of more than 20 years in providing learning opportunities for people of all ages. Unfortunately, it is now facing closure at the end of this month unless they can raise £50,000 to keep the farm open. Will you work with other members of your Government and Swansea council to try and safeguard the future of this important asset in the short term, whilst they look at alternative methods of fundraising in the longer term?

Well, thank you very much for the question. I am familiar with this issue. I saw the response issued by the leader of Swansea council, stating that additional funding is available for the farm to submit a bid, in order to see whether they can assist them in that manner. The county is going to assist the farm in the submission of that bid and I am happy to speak to other Cabinet colleagues to see whether there is anything that we can do. But we, as a Government, haven’t received any bid from the farm as yet.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his mention of Morriston Hospital? I, like everyone living in the Swansea city region, are very pleased with the work that’s being done in Morriston Hospital, and the work it’s doing, attracting the hub-and-spoke model for health across the whole of south-west Wales. The question I’ve got though is: the project of greatest importance to Swansea city at the moment is the Swansea city region and the need for financial support for that. What I’m asking is whether the Welsh Government will commit to continuing to fully support the Swansea city region project.

I’m very happy to give that commitment this afternoon, Llywydd. The Welsh Government has been ready to sign the Swansea city deal for some weeks now. We are frustrated by the actions of the UK Government in the different messages that different Ministers in that Government appear to relay. I was pleased to see the letter from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Jonathan Edwards, the MP for Carmarthen East, in which the Chancellor again committed himself to the deal, and said that he hoped the Government would be in a position to move ahead with it very shortly. We certainly believe that they ought to be in that position.

Well, of course, Cabinet Secretary, one of the reasons for the delays is the UK Government’s concerns over the public/private sector balance with that city deal. And on that subject, if you like, I wonder if you could give us an indication—I appreciate you can’t give me a specific figure—of what proportion of Wales’s European funding in my region has gone on public service projects where the main delivery partner has come from either the private or the third sector?

I’m very happy to provide those figures and that level of detail to the Member. In general, as she knows, private sector partners are one of the major ways in which we’re able to deliver European funding alongside our universities, local government and the Welsh Government itself. Private sector partners are up there at that end of the league, and are fully represented at the programme monitoring committee, chaired by my colleague, Julie Morgan. I was pleased to be at that programme monitoring committee at the end of February, and to talk with private sector partners there, both about the way in which they are able to deploy funds under the current round, and how they can help us shape our thinking in relation to regional policy beyond Brexit.

Cabinet Secretary, the Welsh Government provide the City and County of Swansea with around £300 million per year to deliver public service to the people of Swansea. In the most recent National Survey for Wales, the number of people who felt that the City and County of Swansea delivered high-quality services was just over 50 per cent. Cabinet Secretary, do you believe that this represents value for money, and what can the Government do to ensure that local authorities deliver high-quality public services to the people whom they serve and, in the next survey, reach for the 70 per cent and expand on that in the future?

I do think that the people of Swansea get good value for money from the investment that we make in their public services—both health services and services provided by local authorities. Of course, we need to be ambitious for levels of satisfaction. Health service levels of satisfaction, as you know, at primary and secondary care are eye-wateringly high and always have been. I know that colleagues in local government aspire to achieving similar levels of satisfaction in the future.