3. What are the Welsh Government's priorities for infrastructure investment in west Wales? OAQ52529

I thank the Member for that question. Amongst our priorities for infrastructure investment in west Wales are the £0.5 billion of investment in the twenty-first century schools programme in the area, completion of 42 separate affordable housing schemes, the £50 million we intend to invest in improvements to the A40, and the delivery of the Cardigan integrated care centre.

I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for that response. Now, the Wales infrastructure investment plan's mid-point review highlights the allocation of £110 million from the Welsh Government Building for the Future programme to regenerate town centres across Wales. Of course, Milford Haven in my constituency has regularly been at the top of vacant shop rates in recent years, and so, given the historic problems in Pembrokeshire, could you tell us how this funding will actually be allocated across Wales, and what specific funding from that programme will be allocated to regenerate towns in my own constituency?   

Well, Llywydd, the detail of that decision is not one that I make as finance Secretary; I make the money available to my portfolio colleagues, and then they make the decisions that Paul Davies refers to, and very important decisions they are. And I know that my colleague, the economy and transport Secretary, takes a close interest in the way in which we are able to use the funds that have been made available to regenerate town centres right across Wales, including west Wales. I'll make sure that the Member gets a note of the specifics to the question that he has asked me.  

Well, before too long, the Government will receive the feasibility study emerging from the agreement with Plaid Cymru on reopening the rail line between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth. When the First Minister came to the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister in Aberystwyth, he poured cold water over the idea of reopening the line, which was rehearsed in the Cambrian News editorial. But now, with the announcement made yesterday by Ken Skates on how little money we’ve received in rail investment in Wales, and given the fact that you are now having discussions to have access to funds flowing from the Government here to the Westminster Government, and vice versa, isn’t this an appropriate time to make the national case for reopening this rail line, and will you and your Government lead this battle to get that investment, which is well deserved but would also be properly invested in this area of the world?

Well, Llywydd, I heard what Ken Skates said in the statement here yesterday. I also heard what other Members had to say about the investment that we’ve not received here in Wales from the United Kingdom Government in our railway services. I do look forward to the report that we will receive about reopening the rail line between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth. There are a number of things that we have agreed to do to start to look at what can be done in the future, but we will have to await that study on the feasibility of the railway. But there is more than one report that we’re awaiting and we will have to take them together and then bring out the priorities that we will need to undertake, having looked at what we can and should do in the future.