5. Statement by the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd: Fiscal implications for Wales of the impact of, and response to, COVID-19

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:09 pm on 13 May 2020.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 5:09, 13 May 2020

So, what Huw Irranca-Davies is describing is very much the thinking that was behind the Welsh Government's publication of our budget that we voted on back in March, which seems like an awful long time ago now, but it's only a matter of weeks. And, as part of that budget, we undertook that cross-Government piece of work where we identified particular areas where we wanted to see increased investment and an increased pace and scale of change and improvement, and biodiversity and decarbonisation were both crucial parts of that. So, there was a package of, if I recall correctly, £140 million aimed at decarbonisation and biodiversity, and I think it's really important that, when we start to look towards the recovery, we very much consider how our capital investment in particular can support those kinds of initiatives and investments.

I know that there's a lot of thinking going on across Welsh Government at the moment as to how we can lock in some of the more positive things that we have seen as a result of the coronavirus, so, for example, people looking towards active travel more—you know, what incentives and how can we convince local authorities to make changes to their town centres and so on, so that, when society does start to move forward and into recovery, it's actually much easier to continue with the active travel and other things. So, Lee Waters has put down a bit of a challenge to local authorities in that particular area. And, again, air pollution—what more can we do now that we've all started to embrace working from home and we've proven that it is possible? Do we change the way that we work in a much more fundamental way? So, I think that there are big questions for us as we emerge from the crisis, and things won't ever be the same again, but we can certainly try and ensure that things are better.