6. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the allocation of funding to the Communities and Children portfolio to support the Welsh Government’s car parking pilot scheme? OAQ(5)0105(FLG)

The budget of 2017-18, approved by the Assembly, reflects our agreement with Plaid Cymru to provide £3 million for pilot schemes to support free town-centre car parking.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your answer. Can I ask what further details you can give on the £3 million fund for a pilot scheme to support town-centre parking and how it will operate? What involvement, so far, have you had with local authorities across Wales? I will say that one local authority that I did write to recently informed me that they were unaware of this funding or how to apply for it and, as a result, have not made any submission to the Welsh Government to receive this funding.

Well, Llywydd, local authorities don’t have to apply to receive the funding because they receive it through the RSG. So, they will all receive their share of the funding. Let me say that I do expect that every local authority in Wales will participate in the new scheme. I understand that my colleague Carl Sargeant met with Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson on this matter earlier today. The Cabinet Secretary, Carl Sargeant, has written to all local authorities today, and the letter has already been published, in which he sets out a series of requirements and guidelines to make sure that local authorities are aware of the scheme and that they will participate within it in the way that we would have expected.

Plaid Cymru is disappointed that the funding for the free parking programme is being distributed through the revenue support grant, rather than there being a specific pot available for councils to bid for, because there is a risk that this funding won’t be used to its intended purpose. But I do understand, following the meeting I had this morning, and at my request, that you will be contacting all council leaders asking them to allocate the funding for this specific programme. Will you therefore confirm that your Government is asking councils to use the funding for free parking, as was agreed between the two parties, as part of an ongoing attempt to improve our high streets across Wales?

Well, I understand, Chair, that whenever anybody has a particular scheme that they are committed to, they would like to see it in a special grant because it’s more visible in that way. That’s always in a bit of a conflict with the principle that local authorities of all parties prefer that money should go into the RSG to allow greater flexibility for people on the ground. In this case, I decided that it would go into the RSG, but that it would be very carefully monitored. The Cabinet Secretary’s letter makes that clear. We want to have innovation. We want to allow local authorities to develop pilots that work best in their own localities, with the aim—. As Sian Gwenllian said, the shared aim of them all is to do more to allow our high streets to be thriving places where businesses can operate successfully and local people can feel that they are provided with something that is vibrant and worth while in their lives, too.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.