6. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Local Communities

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:08 pm on 4 May 2022.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 4:08, 4 May 2022

Well, you forget, of course, Darren, our £244 million council tax reduction scheme. That, in itself, is helping over 270,000 households, and there are 220,000 exempted from council tax altogether, but they are still getting that £150 cost-of-living payment. That's still being paid to those households in Wales.

But it's also crucially important that we look to the other ways of standing up for local authorities: the £0.75 billion extra in the local government settlement, and funding for schools, social care, the real living wage. It's crucially important in terms of social care workers—that's the £43 million allocated to health boards to implement it—and the extraordinary contributions that they made, in terms of the extra funding allocated to social care.

But also, it is important that the community facilities programme has been mentioned as well: £42 million for close to 300 projects, from Anglesey to Monmouthshire. I am sure that that's in every one of your constituencies that you will see that. But we've also protected jobs and businesses across all of our—