Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 29 June 2022.
Thank you. Well, I think I should correct you when you say the Wales Audit Office criticised the rural development programme—there were literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of schemes, and the benefits to our rural communities I think are very apparent in many, many cases.
I think the event that was held, the conference, and the TasteWales event that was held next door to the conference, have been very successful. What I wanted to do was talk to people. I don't know if you attended yourself, but I wanted to talk to people who had been in receipt of rural development funding—what benefit it had brought to them. Some of the schemes, and some of the programmes—the people I spoke to had been doing them for about 10 years, so there was a wealth of data and evidence, and obviously anecdotal discussions as well, I appreciate, to help us as we bring forward the successor programme. What I have asked officials to do is draw that all together in a document, and if I'm able to, I will certainly publish it.