Part of 3. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 12:36 pm on 24 June 2020.
If I can just correct Janet Finch-Saunders: the Welsh Government has not had significant funds in a Barnett consequential. The UK Government have indicated we will get some later this year, but, clearly, if we'd waited for that, there would have been animal welfare issues, which there haven't been.
We didn't feel we needed a specific zoo fund, as you referred to it, because, from the outset, we provided all the licensed zoos and animal attractions with details of the existing schemes that you had. I know the Welsh Mountain Zoo has publicly stated they have received funds from the economic resilience fund, and also that they've had a loan from the Development Bank of Wales, both of which, obviously—one was from the Welsh Government, non-repayable, and the other was from the Development Bank of Wales, which was set up by the Welsh Government. I understand also there is an application in from the third sector resilience fund, and I think that is the area that the consequential will come from the UK Government. But I want to be very clear that we haven't had that funding. A questionnaire went out to all zoos and animal attractions, as I said, at the—probably not right at the start of the pandemic, but certainly in April. And we've been able to show that that funding is available without setting up a specific scheme for the zoos and animal attractions.