5. What consideration has the Cabinet Secretary given to providing funding to prevent flooding when determining the draft budget for 2019/20? OAQ52909

I thank Vikki Howells for that question. The draft budget provides revenue funding of £25 million in 2019-20, together with a £55 million capital programme over two years, to improve flood and coastal defences. This will support flood risk management across Wales, including the investment we have made, for example, in Cwmaman in the Member's own constituency.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. As you will know, authorities around Wales, including my own of RCT, have already had to stretch budgets even further to cope with the effects of storm Callum. In RCT, £100,000 was spent immediately on tackling the floods, and a further £100,000 from reserves has been earmarked for investigative and clearance work. Bearing in mind the impact and cost of future flooding incidents, how have you met these possible financial challenges within the budget allocation to local government?

Well, Llywydd, in the current year, we have increased by some 30 per cent, albeit from a low base, the money we provide to each local authority as part of their annual flood risk management revenue grant, and I intend to sustain that grant at its higher level again next year. Vikki Howells, I know, will be aware that correspondence has been received from the leader of her own council on behalf of local authorities across Wales identifying the additional costs that they have had to sustain as a result of storm Callum. As part of my ambition to assist local authorities in the dilemmas that they currently face, I've made it clear to Councillor Morgan, the leader of RCT, that I will be doing everything I can to assist local authorities with the additional revenue and capital costs that storm Callum has given rise to. We continue to be in correspondence with local authorities to refine those figures and I hope to be able to say something positive on that over the next few weeks. 

Cabinet Secretary, one area that is very vulnerable to flooding is the Old Colwyn promenade in my own constituency, and you'll be aware that the sea defences there are particularly vulnerable. There was a report, which was commissioned by Conwy County Borough Council back in 2010, that estimated that the failure of those defences would happen five years after that report was written. We're now three years beyond the time in which the failures were predicted, and we're already beginning to see significant problems, with that road having to be closed each time there's stormy weather and, indeed, parts of the railway embankment having collapsed in the past as a result of the erosion of it.

You'll be aware that there's vital transport infrastructure that is protected by those defences: the A55 and the north Wales railway line in particular and, indeed, the main sewer for the whole of the bay of Colwyn. Can I ask that you work with the other members of the Cabinet to ensure that defences like this are prioritised so that those vital pieces of transport infrastructure, which are the main arteries of the north Wales economy, do have the protection that they need, and that this is not lost sight of in your budget for next year? 

I thank the Member for those important points. I know that he has been a very regular advocate of the need to address problems that have affected his own constituency over recent years. I can give him absolutely that assurance: that in the £150 million programme that we now have in Wales for flood defences—coastal flood defences in particular—that I will discuss that with both Ken Skates and Lesley Griffiths, who share responsibilities in this area.