3. What is the Welsh Government doing to deliver modern sporting facilities in Brecon and Radnorshire? OQ59252

Llywydd, using funding provided by the Welsh Government, Sport Wales will support 20 projects across Powys in the current financial year through the Be Active Wales fund. This is in addition to capital projects such as the new pump track near Talybont-on-Usk and resurfacing the athletics track at Brecon Leisure Centre.

I'd like to thank you, First Minister, for your answer. Earlier this year, the UK Government announced £12.6 million investment in grass-roots facilities in Wales, with individual projects of investment directed by the Football Association of Wales. I'm here today to bang the drum for more investment in Brecon and Radnorshire. Mid Wales has missed out on much-needed cash in Welsh Government funding streams for sporting facilities. Powys ranked in the bottom half of all Welsh local authorities, and mostly that is due to population numbers. But I am not just here to criticise, because I do have a solution where that money could potentially be spent. Rhayader in my constituency is in much need of a facility upgrade, to give them that high-quality pitch that can produce the Wales sports stars of the future. So, First Minister, I know that you don't have any direct influence over that money, but your presence—. If you would say on the record that the FAW should look seriously at Rhayader's proposals, I'm very sure that your influence would go a long way in making sure that we can get that much-needed investment in Brecon and Radnorshire. 

Well, the very best way, Llywydd, would be if the UK Government had not used the internal market Act powers directly to fund the FAW. That is money that should be here in Wales, being decided here in Wales. Then, I would be able to help the Member a lot more directly.

You will remember the debates in the House of Commons—and particularly in the House of Lords—when UK Government Ministers were put up to explain that the internal market Act powers were necessary only to intervene in the most serious matters, where there were profoundly important economic decisions at stake, and that was why they were being taken. Well, within a few months, they were being used not only to fund the FAW to deal with football pitches in Wales, but the UK Government has taken into its own hands the future of the Welsh tennis court as well. Now, there's a matter of profound economic significance. What it tells you is that the internal market Act was never intended in the way that those Ministers were put up to suggest. It was always designed for the UK Government to be able to act in that pet-project-type way, taking decisions and funding away from Wales.

Two pieces of good news, though, for James Evans: first of all, the Be Active Wales fund will be open again in April, and given that 20 different projects are being funded in the Member's constituency in the current financial year, I think that will be good news, I hope, for those projects in Powys. And as to the particular scheme that the Member has mentioned this afternoon, I'm quite certain it will be taken seriously by the FAW and that, provided it can bring itself within the criteria of the scheme, and I'm sure people will work hard to do that, I'm quite certain the FAW will give it proper and serious consideration.

Good afternoon, First Minister. I just really wanted to follow on from James Evans's question around sporting facilities and concentrate on swimming pools. Many of us, I'm sure, learnt to swim in swimming pools, literally giving us a life-saving skill, and we know that swimming pools are essential for mental health, physical health and particularly for people with disabilities. At this stage, we understand there's no action from the UK Conservative Government to help with bills for non-residential properties, so I just wondered what the Welsh Government could do to help local authorities who are really struggling with bills to heat our swimming pools, potentially picking up from I think it's Devon County Council and their innovation around a digital boiler, whether there are options there for us to consider innovative ways of ensuring that our swimming pools, particularly in rural areas like Powys, remain open. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I thank Jane Dodds for that. I know that the leisure sector, not just in Wales, but across the border as well, is disappointed that swimming pools have been excluded for help under the UK Government's new energy bill discount scheme. If you're running a museum, you will get help from that scheme, but if you're running an energy-intensive place like a leisure centre, and particularly a swimming pool, then you won't be getting any help at all. That seems perverse, doesn't it, given that we know that the most expensive part of any leisure centre is the swimming pool itself. So, we will hope to see in tomorrow's spring statement some sensible change in that direction, so that leisure centres and the local authorities who support them will be able to cover those costs in that way.

The Devon example is an interesting one, isn't it, because it solves the problem in a different way. It doesn't just seek to pay the higher bills, it seeks to find new sources of energy that can be used. There are many, many examples here in Wales where you have industries that create a great deal of heat, where that heat is simply dispersed into the air, and where, if the geographical proximity was good enough, you could try to reuse that heat in a way that provides not just for swimming pools, but in district heating schemes and so on. A great deal of thought is being given in many parts of Wales to exactly that sort of innovative and experimental way of finding better ways of being able to heat those very important local facilities into the future.