Storm Christoph

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:33 pm on 26 January 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 1:33, 26 January 2022

Well, Carolyn, the way that that works at the moment is, obviously, we allocate an unhypothecated capital grant to local authorities as part of their overall funding settlement. We try very hard not to hypothecate funding in the way that you suggest, because obviously what would happen is that would be taken off the overall unhypothecated grant and held centrally. We don't think that is the best way to do it. In point of fact, we've assisted, as I just said to Gareth, local authorities with nearly £18.5 million in storm damage repairs over the last winter. Also, from the revenue point of view, we also have the emergency financial assistance scheme, which is the revenue funding that kicks in in particularly severe climatic conditions. So, we have a number of schemes available to assist with both revenue and capital, but local authorities would, I think, be the first to say that they didn't want more hypothecation inside what is a finite capital grants system.