Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:32 pm on 2 February 2022.
Thank you very much for raising this issue. We remain really proud in Wales of the work that we've done to retain the EMA, and also very proud of the work that we're doing jointly with Plaid Cymru in respect of many items in the co-operation agreement relating to poverty, not least our free-school-meal pledge, which will invest an additional £90 million up to 2024-25 to deliver this commitment in stages, as local authorities are able to expand their work in this particular area.
With regard to EMA, obviously, we'll have to keep that matter under review. We've taken a different approach to our budget over the next three years, allocating essentially all available funding at this point in order to maximise funding and avoid the risk of underspends emerging in years, and so on. So, we have taken a slightly different approach this year in terms of giving ourselves less flexibility, but I know that Luke Fletcher makes a strong case in support of the EMA, which obviously we would want to keep under review.