9. Will the Minister outline the Welsh Government's priorities when allocating funding as part of the Second Capital Investment Package? OAQ54702

The £130 million second tranche of the capital investment package will deliver further confidence in Wales and support businesses in the face of Brexit. We are also investing in the future through initial measures to respond to the climate emergency and protect Wales's environment. 

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I was particularly pleased to see within that the investment of £7 million to support and protect our environment. Building it into our capital spend is an important part of tackling the climate emergency that the Welsh Government has so rightly declared. Can you provide any further details for us today on how you'll work with colleagues across Government to achieve this?

Yes. So, decarbonisation is one of those areas that we're really keen to make some real progress on now, in terms of the budget that we'll be laying shortly. But the things we were able to announce during the capital investment package recently I think did give us the opportunity to just take the first step in that regard. So, as Vikki Howells mentions, there was £7 million to support the environment. That was £4 million for the national parks, £1.7 million for Multi Species Wales and £1.3 million for the Local Energy Service. But, beyond that, some of the other things that are important for the environment within the recent package were £14.5 million additional for active travel and the local transport fund schemes, and they'll fund a range of projects delivering critical walking and cycling infrastructure, encouraging behaviour change in Wales; an additional £10 million to increase the number of new homes produced with a modular approach, and then that, of course, takes us further on that journey to make new homes low or zero-carbon; and an investment of £1.3 million to support local new renewable energy schemes, aiding our transition, again, to that low-carbon economy. So, I think that this programme has been really important, but I certainly see it as a springboard for much more ambitious plans in the future.

Thank you, Minister, for that session.